Unrequited Loves
by Willow Athena
Summary: Current time:Egoist have been dating for 7years. All Nowaki knows is that Hiroki used to love Akihiko & got hurt, but Hiroki's pride still keeps the details a secret.Was Nowaki the 1st person 2fall in love with Hiroki? Hiroki's girlfriend appears NxH OC
1. The Girlfriend

**Unrequited Loves**

_By Willow Athena_

**Author's Note:** I'm not even going to pretend that this is a one-shot – I've given up, I know I can't write those. This will however be a _short_ (just a few chapters). I'm writing this because I needed a light-hearted break from Supernova, and this story will only be updated if there is interest. I'm really new to this fandom. I encountered Junjou by chance and loved it. Having now watched both seasons, I'm an **egoist** fan since their first appearance – I wish there was more of this couple in the anime, so here I am fabricating more in fanfiction. Enjoy.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything, especially Junjou Romantica or any of its characters, but the OC is mine.

***Revised Version***

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><p><strong>CHAPTER 1 – The Girlfriend <strong>

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><p>Nowaki finally arrived back home. He had been unexpectedly called back out after breakfast due to the hospital being suspiciously short staffed on the Friday. He had just pulled a double shift and should have refused, but couldn't bring himself to do it, so he had reluctantly left his Hiro-san at the university entrance and went off to attend to the emergency. After half a day, one of the attendings, who was just then sauntering into work, took one look at the resident and kindly ordered Nowaki home for the rest of Friday and Saturday morning as well. Nowaki was incredibly grateful for this sudden streak of luck as Hiroki only had one morning class on Fridays and would no doubt be home by then. At this joyful news Nowaki had already begun contemplating how he was going to seduce Hiroki into afternoon sex.<p>

Nowaki had gotten drenched to the bone due to the sudden storm that had clouded the midday sky as he left the hospital. He had heard superstitious old people, he had given his seat up for on the train, talk about how the storm was a bad omen and foretold of the winds of change sweeping away happiness. Nowaki never believed in things like that; he was mercifully taken in at the orphanage on a similar day, he had been told. Nowaki, ever the optimist, should have stopped to consider that he was also abandoned on the steps of the orphanage on a similar day.

In the entryway, Nowaki brushed what water he could off of himself and then gently opened the inner door of the apartment he shared with his cute Hiro-san.

"Ta…" He was about to say _Tadaima_ and announce that he was back home, but the sight he saw stole his voice away. A vicious crack of lightening and boom of thunder concealed the isolated syllable that had fallen out of his gaping mouth and simultaneously illuminated the scene so he would have no doubt about what he was seeing.

Nowaki saw Hiroki's profile. Hiroki was standing in the lounge, his back against the open plan granite kitchen counter that overlooked the lounge. Nowaki rubbed his eyes thinking he had gone delirious from exhaustion, but the picture did not change. It was his Hiro-san alright, head bent down and arms on the waist of a girl he was kissing. She looked too small and young to be one of his students. Her left hand was securely holding Hiroki's pale blue tie and her right was affectionately knotted in his shaggy brown hair as she stood on her tip toes and leaned into Hiroki and the willing kiss he was giving her, which didn't seem anywhere close to ending even though Nowaki felt like he had been watching them for almost a minute.

Nowaki loudly slammed the door as he stepped in. Hiroki's eyes suddenly shot open. Out of shock, he pushed the girl away, perhaps a little too forcefully. She flew away from him and fell down, her short blue-tartan pleated skirt flew up higher on her knees as she painfully landed on the hardwood floor.

"Stop being so rough, Hiro," she chided as she looked up at him. "I'm not a guy, you can't just fling me around," she added more irritably as she stood up.

"Look, Nowaki, I don't want you to misunderstand, this is not what it looks like…," Hiroki began saying from the spot where he seemed to have been frozen by Nowaki's sudden icy stare, but Hiroki was interrupted and his attempts to pacify his boyfriend were thwarted by her rushing up to Nowaki and offering her hand to him.

"Hi, I'm Hiroki's girlfriend, nice to meet you, Nowaki-kun," she brightly said, offering her hand to Nowaki without an ounce of shame about having been caught kissing HIS boyfriend.

Nowaki was so angry, he didn't know what to do – if she was a guy he would have decked her out cold by now. Nowaki noticed Hiroki flinch when she said 'girlfriend' but he still had not denied it. When Nowaki stood frozen and did not take her offered hand, she withdrew it and took a different approach.

"Usami Hiroshi, I am pleased to make your acquaintance," she respectfully bowed and said in her most practiced and polite voice. Perhaps this guy was just shy and she had scared him, she thought as she straightened up, she knew she could sometimes be a bit jarring.

_Usami?_

Nowaki looked down at her tiny 5ft tall body and her kind lavender eyes staring up at him. Akihiko's eyes, Nowaki realised, and it made him even angrier. Why was this family always causing trouble in his relationship?

Hiroki returned from the bathroom with some towels. He put his hand on top of her lilac coloured hair, turned her head around, and moved her aside. Without another spoken word, she lifted her little black socked foot and stomped on Hiroki's foot with her heel as hard as she could.

"What the fuck, Hiro!" Hiroki scowled at her.

"I told you to stop fucking pushing me, Hiroki," she huffed as she turned and walked off to take a seat in the lounge, her long layered lilac hair flowing around her like the cape.

Hiroki handed Nowaki a towel to dry off with and bent down to the floor, mopping up the puddle Nowaki's statuesque form had created with another towel. "Trust me, whatever you're thinking, it's wrong. You're going to get sick standing here like that. Take a shower and change and I'll explain," Hiroki offered as he stood up and looked apologetically at Nowaki even though it hurt his face to do it.

Nowaki decided he should give his Hiro-san the benefit of the doubt, I mean it wasn't like he had come in and found him lying naked under a sheet with her. Hiroki had been uncharacteristically understanding about the awkward situation with his senpai that morning, so surely Nowaki owed Hiro-san some maturity in return. Nowaki's anger ebbed, his Hiro-san was right, he should trust that there was some rational explanation for why he suddenly wanted to punch the doll-like Usami in his lounge. Nowaki was about to do what Hiroki had asked and give himself time to cool down while he took a shower, when…

"You still owe me kisses and it's time to pay up, Hi-ro-ki," she shouted in a sing-song voice from the lounge and Nowaki saw Hiroki flinch again. Nowaki forcefully tossed his bag on the ground and angrily stormed past Hiroki to the bathroom. Hiro-san better be able to explain this or somebody was going to be permanently evicted.

Nowaki's shower and change took 5 minutes; he didn't want to give them any more time than was necessary. As he walked down the corridor towards the lounge, in a grey t-shirt and blue jeans, he paused for the briefest second to prepare himself for what he might see. Even if his Hiro-san was being an idiot right now, Nowaki decided he would fight for him, he would not let this Usami-doll have him.

When Nowaki walked into view, he saw Hiroki's almost 6ft tall body towering over the 5ft little girl, whose head was hung low as Hiroki scolded her in an animated hush. Her pale silvery lilac hair fell all around her like a silk curtain obscuring her face so Nowaki could not get a clear look at this entitled child. Just because your surname is Usami, doesn't mean you can have everything you want. Everything the doll wore looked expensive, even though they were all ordinary items Nowaki saw many young girls wearing, perhaps they were expensive, or perhaps it was just the graceful way she carried them. Even with her head contritely bowed as Hiro-san scolded her, she looked like she could break into a pirouette at any moment.

Nowaki cleared his throat. Hiroki looked up at him and the little girl looked away and mopped up her unshed tears with the long sleeves of her back cashmere sweater so Hiroki wouldn't notice them. Without any further admonishment, from Hiroki, the little girl walked up to Nowaki and strained her neck to look up at the giant.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know Hiroki was dating anyone," she calmly said, her polished voice rushing like silk falling down his skin. She sounded older than she looked, perhaps it was her precise articulation of the words that made her seem older, or the clear authoritative tone she said them with, but Nowaki had no doubt that if she said something, she was used to people listening in rapt awe. "He could never afford this place on what he makes, so I thought you were his roommate," she sincerely explained as she looked up at Nowaki, but he could see the words hurt her to say for some reason. "I'm really happy for him," she said as her eyes filled with tears. "I wish we could have met differently. I'm really sorry," she said as Nowaki was the only one to see her tears silently roll down her cheeks as she bowed her head to hide them.

"I'm just going to go," she said as she cautiously put her hand up and stepped back. Nowaki had instinctively taken a step closer, wanting to gather the broken doll up in his arms and comfort her. Nowaki hated seeing anyone in pain, and here was this little doll-like girl crying silently in front of him and trying to hide it form Hiro-san. It was a tragedy he could not endure. Even though she had been crying most of the way through her apology, her voice had not changed from the calm authoritative timbre it had when she started. What kind of child learns to hide their pain so effectively, Nowaki wondered.

"There's a bad storm outside, you can't leave," Nowaki warmly offered and her retreat froze at his tone.

"I'll be fine," she said without turning back, her tiny hands balling up into determined fists.

"That's hardly the point," Hiroki interjected, now that he knew Nowaki wasn't against her staying. Hiroki had wanted her to stay, but after what his boyfriend had come home to, he didn't want to be the one to suggest it. Something important must have brought her here. She never intruded in his life, she rarely called, mostly communicating with him via e-mail, and all since that awful day he wished they could all forget. He would never forget the way she had looked at him, like he had fallen off of the pedestal she had placed him on and shattered her heart. She was a reflection of his pain in that moment and they both struggled to put it behind them. But here she was now, and he had a chance to repair the friendship.

"Thank you both, but I don't want to be any more trouble than I have already been," she calmly said. "I really will be fine," she added in her silky voice as her hand grasped the handle of the inner door of the apartment.

"Stop this!" Hiroki shouted as he pushed the door she had opened shut. He put all his weight against his hand and held it there as she tried to open the door again. "I can't take it when you do that," he gruffly scolded. He hated the excessively polite persona she and Akihiko would adopt when they thought they had done something wrong, like it was a learned reflex from their childhood to distance themselves from the pain of being a disappointment. He wasn't one of her parents, and he couldn't take it when she behaved in this way.

"Do what?" she tonelessly asked without turning around, wanting to hide the evidence of the drying tears on her face even though his broad shoulders were right behind her.

"Don't fuck with me, you know what I'm talking about," he shouted as he spun her around and forced her to face him. She still refused to look up at him but he could see the wetness of her cheeks and jaw even if her fringe covered her left eye and the wet eyelashes of her right eye were downcast. She and Akihiko never let people see them cry, like their tears were evidence of an unnecessary weakness or flaw in their character. A tremendous pain must have caused these tears and Hiroki wasn't about to let her go before uncovering it. Not before wiping them away.

"I always go too far, Hiroki," she whispered. "I always end up hurting someone, and I never want that person to be you," she confessed, her tone so much more tender now. It made Nowaki wonder about what kind of relationship Hiro-san had with this little girl as he walked up behind his boyfriend. "It's the Usami curse, to hurt the ones they love, and I should have known better than to drag you into it again," she said, her soft voice sounding less confident now.

"You will not succeed in taking all the blame and convincing me that I bear no responsibility for our predicament. I proposed it to you, remember," Hiroki conceded and gathered her up in his arms, and to save her pride, he didn't look down at her as she wiped her tears away.

"Actually, you lied about it to our parents and then came to my school, chased away my boyfriend at the time, and begged me to cover for you," she corrected as she pushed him away.

"Maybe we should all go back into the lounge, then someone can explain what's going on to me," Nowaki interrupted from behind his lover. Nowaki was a bit nervous now, he wasn't sure if he wanted to know, but he wasn't going to let this school girl go without telling him everything. Nowaki walked in and they both hesitantly followed like they were being called into the principal's office.

Hiroki and Hiroshi sat on the same black suede couch but on opposite ends, and had the presence of mind to look contrite. "Would you like something to drink?" Nowaki pleasantly asked. _Something besides my Hiro-san, I mean_, Nowaki darkly added in his head.

"It's been an awful day, I could use a beer, thanks," she replied in polished silk and was captured by Nowaki's beautiful blues. She shyly smiled up at Nowaki who walked over and vaulted the granite kitchen counter instead of walking around.

"Show-off," Hiroki mumbled.

"What was that Hiro-san?" Nowaki called as he opened the fridge.

"I'll also have a beer," Hiroki covered quickly.

Nowaki walked back and handed Hiroki his beer and handed the little Usami a juice box. She looked at it without saying anything for a minute. Hiroki was shaking with restrained laughter beside her, tears forming in his eyes. "Did I stutter Nowaki-kun? B-b-beer…J-j-juice," she condescendingly began, "or are you one of those men who thinks women shouldn't drink?" she sweetly asked, burning with inner fury.

"No, I'm one of those men who thinks children shouldn't drink," Nowaki confidently said as he took a sip of his own beer from the couch across from her and Hiroki. Hiroki burst out laughing and almost spilled some of his open beer.

"How old do you think I am?" she dangerously asked as she stole Hiroki's beer from his hand and took a large sip while tossing him the juice box.

"Too young to be drinking," Nowaki said and looked disapprovingly at Hiroki for not taking the beer away from the young girl.

"Don't look at me, I'm staying out of this," Hiroki laughed as he stabbed the juice box with a straw and took a sip.

"Really, and how old is that?" she challenged, taking a polite sip of Hiroki's beer.

She was tiny. If she didn't have a curve to her hip and perky B-cup sized breasts, he would have said 12, but her anatomy would suggest that she has at least entered puberty, so perhaps 14 at the oldest, but from the way she was talking Nowaki decided to add two years more to that. "Sixteen perhaps," Nowaki answered, "and that's still too young to be drinking, no matter how mature you think you are," Nowaki added with concern.

"Failed," she stated like he had answered incorrectly on a game show. "Maybe you should add a decade onto that," she smugly suggested.

No! She couldn't be 26 years old, _he_ was 26 years old, Nowaki thought. She looked like a child, like an expensive porcelain doll that other children begged their parents to buy them. Her long lilac hair framed a petite perfectly sculpted face and _angular jaw_…she had no baby fat, he realised, and if he looked at each part in isolation and not as a part of a petite little doll, it was entirely possible. He was always being mistaken for someone older since he was so tall, so he guessed people could assume the reverse of someone so small. His Hiro-san was also often mistaken for someone younger even though he was 29 years, almost 30 soon.

"I'm sorry Usami-san, I didn't mean to offend you," Nowaki apologised. He hadn't meant to stomp all over a tender subject, especially given that he was so tall and now it kind of seemed like he had been bullying her.

"That sounds like you're talking to my father or Haruhiko, you can make it up to me by calling me Hiro, not Hiroshi – I hate my name. I don't know why my father was so insistent about naming his only daughter that," she offered and smiled at him while taking anther polite sip of beer. "I can't take it anymore, this tastes like shit, Hiroki," she said stealing the juice box back and shoving his beer at him.

"You asked for beer," he defended and took a sip of the beer.

"I was just being polite, I didn't want to be difficult and ask for something complicated. Do you have vodka?" she asked as she took a sip from the bendy straw. She really did look like a cute little schoolgirl when she did that, Nowaki thought. "Good vodka," Hiro added.

"You mean expensive vodka," Hiroki corrected. "Yeah, on the top shelf in the kitchen," he replied while smiling. Nowaki watched Hiroki. He had never seen Hiro-san so at ease with someone new, then again, she wasn't new for Hiroki, he realised and decided he wanted to know it all.

"Nevermind," she sighed and put her feet up on Hiroki's lap and he absently began massaging her little black socked feet like it was a long learned habit. Their every interaction made Nowaki more interested in the story behind it. The easy familiarity Hiroki had with the doll made Nowaki feel like he had glimpsed at an unseen side of his Hiro-san, like he was getting a peek at the obsessive child he was before he became so defensive around others.

Nowaki cleared his throat. He felt like they were purposefully avoiding explaining things to him. "Uh…Hiro-san?" Nowaki hesitantly asked, and he saw Hiroshi's perfectly waxed eyebrow rise in question about the nickname. Hiro-san adorably began to blush and rub the back of his neck with his hand.

"She _is_ kind of my girlfriend," Hiroki sheepishly began, while he looked down and nervously rubbed Hiro's socked feet. "My betrothed actually," he added and finally looked up at Nowaki who looked utterly confused.

"It's like being in a relationship, but without all the sex," she clarified. "You're telling it all wrong, Hiroki," she scolded.

"It's nowhere near like being in a relationship," Hiroki angrily countered.

"I love you, you love me, sometimes we hate each other, we don't have sex…you're right, it's like we're already married," she argued, sounding a little annoyed with him.

"My parents don't know I prefer guys," Hiroki simply said, like that explained everything – it didn't. Nowaki had always wondered about Hiroki's parents, but he always tended to avoid the subject or become really defensive and say they don't matter. Nowaki didn't grow up in a conventional family, and Hiro-san was always so secretive and defensive about the topic that Nowaki always felt like he was pushing his lover to the edge when he brought the subject up. Hiro-san rarely went to family functions or special occasions and when he did, he was never gone for long and always came back in a worse mood than when he had left. Now Nowaki at least knew who he was spending his time with at these things. Hiro-san always returned to him and Nowaki was never the type to get jealous over family, and he often encouraged Hiroki to attend Easter lunch or whatever it was. Nowaki believed that family was important, even if Hiroki took it for granted most of the time.

"For an associate professor of literature, your story telling skills are shit. They really will let anyone teach at Mitsuhasi University," she piped up as she straightened to face Nowaki. Hiroki mumbled something incomprehendible under his breath.

"Hiroki was unrequitedly in love with an ass," she began and gave Hiroki a meaningful look about who that ass could be. "Anyway, he was also a little _adventurous_ when he was in university, and I'm pretty sure his parents got a whiff of some rumours that were circulating at the time. You really could have been more discrete, Hiroki," she chided. "I think both our parents were worried about all the time Hiroki and Akihiko spent together at each other's houses. They really were inseparable until Takahiro, and even then they were still close. There was probably pressure on both our families to clear things up, so they called you and Akihiko in didn't they?" she asked, like she didn't already know what had happened.

"Yeah," Hiroki replied and lay his head back on backrest of the couch and pinched the bridge of his nose to lessen the headache that was beginning to take hold.

"Akihiko came right out and said he was gay and that he was moving out because he had had enough of our family's shit, and to leave Hiroki out of it because he was just a friend and then he stormed off, leaving Hiroki alone with those sharks. Then Hiroki came up with the most brilliant plan to explain away all the time he spent with Akihiko, and what was it that you said to them?" The silk of her voice had tied a noose around his neck, and now he was hung and had nowhere to go but to tell Nowaki the truth.

"I told them I had been dating Hiro, and that Akihiko was just covering for us," he confessed, like it was the worst mistake he had ever made. Hiroki often wondered if his life would have been different if he had done exactly what Akihiko had that day, but he could not bring himself to break his mother's heart as she carefully watched him from across the lounge that afternoon. Unlike in the Usami family, Hiroki was an only child and was expected to carry on the Kamijou name and inherit all the wealth that came with it. Hiroki didn't have an older brother to pick up the slack like Akihiko had, all Hiroki and his parents had was him, and at that moment he had been unable to shatter their dreams.

"Why would they believe you were dating Hiro-chan if you were always with Akihiko?" Nowaki asked, trying to steer the conversation away from something Hiroki obviously felt uncomfortable discussing.

"She was like our shadow, wherever we went, she went, it was really annoying actually." Hiroki latched onto the lifesaver Nowaki was throwing him.

"You're annoying," she bickered. "Well, I used to love my brother before I hated him," she added as a justification. She wasn't trailing behind Akihiko, of course, that's just what she used to tell everyone, she was really just helplessly following her heart, even if it got her nowhere.

"So, Hiroki showed up at my high school," she began and looked accusingly at him. "I was sixteen at the time and kissing my boyfriend goodbye, what was his name…Sumi _something_," she tried to remember.

"Sumi Keiichi," Hiroki offered. "He was the son of the author Sumi-sensei, and looked far too much like Akihiko for you to be dating him. It was too weird," Hiroki added.

"Why was it weird? My brother's an attractive guy, don't you think? Why should I not have looked for those obsessive and attractive qualities in someone else? But to tell you the truth, I kind of felt like he talked about Akihiko far too much – what a blow to my pride that was. Everybody always wanted Akihiko, and was only ever interested in me because I was Akihiko adjacent. I can't believe you remembered him," she questioningly peered at Hiroki.

"He was in my Intro to Japanese Literature class two years ago with Akihiko's boyfriend. He remembered me and asked about you," Hiroki revealed.

"And?"

"I told him you were still unavailable," Hiroki firmly stated.

"Well, with the scene you caused that day, I doubt he would ever forget you," she teased. Hiroki never did things in half measures, and this dramatic intensity had long been present. He loved intensely, he cried intensely, and he above all cared too much no matter how hard he tried to conceal it.

"What happened?" Nowaki asked, at the edge of his seat and having long since consumed his beer in nervous frustration.

"Hiroki, my twenty year old boyfriend from university shows up in Akihiko's expensive red sports car, flings my current boyfriend, Keiichi, off of me, kisses me and says 'We're dating now' and shoves me into the car to explain further. No one at my school ever forgot it, and my dating experience in that high school ended that day." She stared daggers at Hiroki and then smiled and shook her head. Even though it had caused her a lot of trouble, it was an incredibly fond memory for her.

"You should have refused," Hiroki whispered to her. "It was too much to ask of a friend," he gruffly added.

"I could never have refused you, and the offer you made was so enticing, I couldn't say no. But in truth, Nowaki-kun, I had to change schools, I even went overseas so I could date without suspicion, so none of our friends and family would see me with another man," she sweetly revealed.

"And what did he offer you?" Nowaki wearily asked, not really sure if he wanted to know the answer.

"Anything I wanted," she replied while intently inspecting the label on her juice box.

"Anything?" Nowaki repeated to make sure he had heard her right.

"Yes, anything," Hiroki grumpily growled and turned away, resting his chin in the palm of his hand which he leaned on the armrest of the black suede couch.

"And what did you ask for?" Nowaki's voice shook as he questioned her.

"As long as I remained his girlfriend, all I asked for was to be able to truly kiss him and have him kiss me back, like he cared. Hiroki had this problem of not caring when we were younger. I think that I perhaps also wanted his emotions to make up for the _discomfort _I knew my acquiescence would cause me," she revealed, looking over at Hiroki who was still avoiding both their gazes.

"You should have just refused," Hiroki reiterated. He had been expecting her to ask for more, perhaps limitless sex or eternal servitude or something. She already had enough money, so he knew he would have to do something in return for her, but what she had asked for at the time had seemed so small and meaningless to him that he had jumped at it and agreed.

"I am sorry about this afternoon, Hiroki. I should have given you a chance to refuse before I kissed you. I have never meant for our agreement to ever cause you or your boyfriend any pain. I'm sorry Nowaki-kun, I rarely if ever enforce the agreement, and I promise, the last time I kissed him was a year ago, so that's probably why he hasn't had the opportunity to tell me about his new relationship," she sincerely apologised but Nowaki looked more pissed off now than he had before.

"We've been dating for seven years," Nowaki explained, trying to burn holes into the side of Hiroki's head.

"What?" she screamed and threw a conveniently placed book at Hiroki, from one of his many handy piles scattered around the apartment.

"Ouch!" he yelped and blushed furiously.

"I blatantly asked you if you were dating anyone last year," she shouted and levelled another book in Hiroki's direction.

"He left me without a word and went to America for a year with radio silence," Hiroki shouted back and dodged another book.

"I would never have kissed you if I'd known you were in a relationship," she stated in irritation and folded her arms.

"It has never stopped you before," he countered.

"My brother doesn't count. Nowaki's not one of those guys you were just fucking to pass the time. For God's sake Hiroki, I can tell that you love him – why didn't you just tell me?" she demanded, sounding more hurt than angry by now. "And here I was under the delusion we were close friends."

"Haven't you ever had something so precious, you were afraid to even utter its name in your house, in case it ever got dragged into the cesspool of a family we both have," Hiroki argued back, not immediately recognising the declaration he had just made.

Had his Hiro-san been trying to protect him all along? Nowaki just sat there in stunned silence, not sure what to do and trying to process if he had heard Hiro-san right. Did Hiro-san think of him as someone precious to him? Nowaki heart threatened to burst and kill him right there. He knew that the winds of change didn't necessarily mean bad changes, they could sweep away doubt, tear away armour and breath fresh new life into an old love.

"Hiroki, I'm so happy for you," she sincerely said and scooted over on the couch to hug him. He let her hug him, in fact, he even hugged her back. Hiroki cradled her small body inside his arms – he really had missed her and her unwavering kindness. She had always been too kind, and for this reason alone, she needed protecting.

"Earlier you said that my mother came to see you," Hiroki stated, once she had settled down in the seat next to him and leaned against him. Hiroki was only mildly curious about what his mother could have said to her to bring her all the way here to see him.

"Yeah, you don't want to know," Hiroshi sighed and moved to the couch Nowaki was sitting on.

"Sorry again, you should go and sit next to him. I know I've been unfairly monopolising him since I arrived," she offered, her kind amethyst eyes sparkling at him.

"It's okay, I know what it's like to miss Hiro-san." Nowaki smiled warmly at her.

"Hey, don't offer me up – it's not like we're some old married couple who sits around holding hands," Hiroki protested but Nowaki got up anyway and walked over to him.

"No, but we _are_ like newlyweds, christening every flat surface of our new home," Nowaki suggested as he grabbed Hiroki's chin and caught his lips in an intimate kiss. Hiroki struggled inside the deep kiss but Nowaki pursued him. All Nowaki wanted was a brief kiss to restake his claim on his Hiro-san, and after all the things Hiroki was keeping from him, he owed him.

"Hiroki, are you always that resistant?" she asked when Nowaki had finally released him. She hadn't been able to tear her eyes away from watching them, but at the same time each second stabbed at her heart. She needed to watch this, she had told herself, but no matter how logical she was being and how gleefully erotic the kiss looked, it hurt for a reason she thought she had long conquered.

"Occasionally," Nowaki answered for him.

"Always when someone is watching," Hiroki angrily added.

"Hiroki, I've seen you doing far worse. Why you two couldn't have used Akihiko's old room, I'll never know," she casually added, sounding more hurt than angry at the sudden influx of the memory. How she wished she could forget. How destructive she had become after that, just like she felt now after watching them. At least it wasn't Akihiko anymore.

"I told you, we didn't plan it and you were supposed to be away at boarding school," he justified. "I don't know why you won't just let it go," Hiroki grumpily added, uncomfortable about bringing up the subject in Nowaki's presence. Nowaki had kept his word and never pried into his relationship with Akihiko, and Hiroki who should have volunteered the information anyway had just wanted to forget the whole thing ever happened.

"Because you deserved better than what happened that day," she angrily countered. "On a similar note," she quickly added, seeing Hiroki's discomfort about lingering on the subject. "I usually don't bring boyfriends home, but I naively thought 'what's the harm this once'. Haruhiko is usually the only one at home, and he doesn't care if I sleep around on you," she began.

"Nice to know the older Usami has my back," Hiroki grumbled but was thankful for the change in topic.

"But it turns out, my brother was having a business meeting with your father, and your mother was running unsupervised through my house," she continued.

"Oh, no…," Hiroki gasped.

"She had the courtesy to knock and wait. I thought about pretending I wasn't there, but then she said, 'I heard you giggling Hiro-chan', so I had no choice," she revealed as she took the last sip of her juice box.

"A relationship doesn't have many places to go when you ask you half-naked boyfriend to hide in the closet so your almost mother in law can come in and discuss your long-term boyfriend at length with you while he listens in the dark. So yeah, that's why I came over." She smiled as she finished her story, an inherited characteristic, but both men continued to look at her with concerned expressions.

Hiroki got up and sat down next to her on the smaller couch. "I'm sorry you had to do that," Hiroki whispered as he caressed her cheek, turning her face towards his. She was always too kind to him, and it was probably now killing her to have hurt someone, but she had done it – for him. She was too good of a friend to him.

"I promised, didn't I," she said as she leaned in and pecked him on the lips. She clasped her hand quickly over her mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm really going to stop doing that, but old habits die hard," she apologised to Nowaki who stood up and walked towards them.

"It's okay, you deserved it," Nowaki assured her as he affectionately ran his fingers over her hair. Nowaki noticed the barely visible 2 millimeters of platinum blonde roots as he displaced her coloured lilac hair, she and Akihiko really must look similar for her to go through this much trouble to look different.

"God, he's warm," she sighed and closed her eyes while she leaned into Nowaki's touch. "And excessively handsome," she complimented.

"I know," Hiroki blushed in acknowledgement and then pulled her away from Nowaki and into his arms again. "Don't go getting any strange ideas," Hiroki warned her.

"Who me?" she asked innocently, batting her long lashes and doll-like features at Nowaki over her right shoulder. Nowaki froze, it was probably one of the cutest things Nowaki had ever seen a girl do. She really was like a life size doll, just as he had originally thought. Nowaki wanted to gather her up in his arms and squeeze her tightly, just like Hiro-san was now doing, but Hiroki seemed pretty attached to her.

"It's just an act," Hiroki warned him. "Don't do that to him, he doesn't know how to defend against it," Hiroki complained as he pinned her shoulders to the couch.

"I told you to stop pushing me Kamijou," she said as she tried to knee him in the groin and missed.

"See, this is what she's really like. The devil with the face of an angel," Hiroki teased as he looked up at Nowaki. He shouldn't have taken his eyes off of her. She was so small that she was difficult to keep a hold of and she managed to squirm her legs up and catch him in a head lock between her thighs.

"I could say the same about you, Kamijou. I heard your students call you 'Kamijou the Devil'," she taunted as he tried to wriggle free and hold her skirt down at the same time.

"And pray tell, what do your students call you – Usami-doll?" he bickered right back, knowing exactly which buttons of hers to push.

"Professor Usami," she shouted as she hit him over the head with a book.

"What? You didn't tell me you were promoted," Hiroki said as he stopped struggling and she released him. He sat up and tried to digest the information as he ran his fingers through his ruffled hair.

"Yeah, at the beginning of this year," she casually said as she straightened her skirt. Nowaki looked at Hiroki with concern; he knew Hiroki would not warm to the news that someone younger than him had attained a professorship before him. That's probably why she hadn't told him Nowaki realised, as she quickly added, "It's probably because I'm an Usami. Teito University probably wants to hit father or Haruhiko up for a generous donation sometime soon and this was probably their way of getting some leverage," she softly said, trying to dismiss the achievement. She must know Hiroki really well, Nowaki realised.

"Don't be an idiot, you're brilliant," Hiroki mumbled.

Perhaps this would have pleased any other person, but Hiroshi knew that when it came to any praise Hiroki gave her, it was often followed by…_just like Akihiko_ in Hiroki's mind, and it pissed her off.

"Whatever," she defensively replied.

"Sorry to pry, but what type of work do you do?" Nowaki asked as he walked into the kitchen and started looking around for what he could use for dinner, as they would obviously be having a guest.

"Are you referring to the job I perform, my career, or my occupation?" she asked him to clarify. Yeah, she was definitely one of Hiroki's friends, only an academic would take a simple question like that and debate the complexity of it rather than just simply answering.

"My occupation is that I spend most of my time spending my family's money, like the spoilt little girl they expect me to be, but I like to consider myself a patron of the arts. To their chagrin, I also perform a job, I lecture the advanced classes for first years and second years in my faculty. And I suppose my chosen career is that I am a professor of literature at Teito University, specialising in western literature," she informed Nowaki with a warm smile.

Nowaki wanted to ask how someone so young finishes their doctorate so fast and attains a professorship. Hiro saw Nowaki's questioning expression, and that he was saying nothing and guessed what it could be about. Even though she would have preferred not to discuss it while Hiroki was moping next to her, she supposed the cat was out of the bag in more ways than one. "I began and finished school early and I studied in London a bit, so I completed my theses in less than the allocated time as well as concurrently lecturing at Teito, and I am an Usami, so lots of doors that would have otherwise been closed, were open to me," she explained.

"Don't give him the wrong impression. I read your work a few years ago, it really was brilliant, and you have probably only gotten better at it since then, so don't make it seem like you're talentless and your family pushed you up, it pisses me off," Hiroki sternly said, like he was reprimanding one of his students.

"Fine, but they had some impact, and that can't be denied. You gave it all up, declared that you didn't want their money, paid your own way through school, lived like a pauper in student housing for years, and all so you could follow your passion independently and make it on your own, and I feel like what I have done cannot compare to that, so I don't want you to feel like I have surpassed you because I don't think I ever could. That's just how I feel about things," she sternly said back, using her lecturer voice on him as well.

"Dumbass," Hiroki insulted while turning an interesting shade of red.

"Even now, when I write a journal article or a poem, I always look at it in the end and ask 'What would Hiroki think of this'," she revealed, her voice returning to the silk of familiarity.

"You never send me anything to read," he accused.

"That's because I don't impose on you like Akihiko and consider you my personal editor that I can call up at all hours of the night and day," she irritably replied. Nowaki agreed with that assessment, Akihiko was always calling Hiroki at all hours and begging him for favours. Nowaki understood that they remained best friends and there was nothing he could do about that, but Akihiko could have some consideration, but he didn't – Akihiko still treated Hiroki like he belonged to him.

"I'm glad to do it," Hiroki defended.

"Just because Misaki is not intellectually stimulating, doesn't mean Akihiko can get his thrills from you whenever he wants. You are a treasure he has lost the right to pillage. I hate him! He just continues to be thoughtless and selfish, and you allow it Hiroki," she frustratedly said and hit Hiroki with a cushion. She was almost equally mad at both of them, but it was far easier to just blame it all on her brother.

"He's my best friend, and yes he can be selfish at times, but he is also thoughtful, caring, and kind."

"When it suits him," she countered, and Hiroki couldn't argue with that.

Nowaki agreed with everything she said, but didn't know how to bring it all up without sounding childish and petty to Hiroki. He was glad that there was someone in the Usami family who was looking out for Hiro-san rather than dragging him down. If they had both turned around from their bickering, they would have realised that Nowaki was smiling down at them from the kitchen counter where he was preparing dinner. They looked so adorable as they were caught in a heated debated about some book Nowaki had never hear of…they were so _cute_. They fought like siblings, Nowaki realised, and was glad Hiroki had one friend who could stand on equal footing with him and call him on his bullshit at times.

She was not just Hiroki's friend, he realised, she was his _girlfriend_.

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><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

I enjoyed writing this. They call Hiroki's character archetype a _tsundere_ which implies that he is initially cold but then warms up as you get to know him. Although the implication is true on the surface, I don't know if Hiroki's complexity can be covered by that one character archetype. Hiroki is really sensitive and warm and caring right from the start, but tries to hide it all because he's been hurt and he has lived a non-linear complicated, messy life that didn't turn out the way he thought he wanted it to– like we all live in reality. I think my purpose in starting this story was to see if anyone else was interested in unpacking Hiroki's complexity.

I also enjoy Nowaki's character – despite the child-like quality of his initial affection for Hiroki, he knew he had to grow up and be Hiroki's equal in some way or they would never last. I like the two different types of intelligence that Nowaki and Hiroki bring to their relationship. As for the OC, if anyone's ever read anything else I've written, you'll know how much I love to play around with OCs. I've never written one like this. I'm trying to write this flawed, doll-like, damaged girl who is always stuck in Akihiko's shadow no matter where she turns. I mean, that's gotta mess you up.

I probably could have worked on this longer, but I let it go where it was cause I wasn't supposed to be obsessive with this story. If there is interest, I may revise it more. I hope you guys enjoyed this anyway, if you did or you didn't feedback would be appreciated in the form of a REVIEW.

~Willow~


	2. The Boyfriend

**Unrequited Loves**

_By Willow Athena_

**Author's Note:** The first chapter of this Fanfic has been REVISED if you have the time or the inclination to go back and read it. More than just the grammar has been edited, but you won't miss anything big if you don't go back and read it.

If you read Supernova and you're also reading this, please don't lynch me. This and any other fic is easier for me to occupy my time with because the content is different, you know where I am in my main story, and you guys know why I need a break from it. Thanks for your understanding.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything, especially Junjou Romantica, Bleach or Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, or any of its characters, but the OC is mine.

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><p><strong>CHAPTER 2 – The Boyfriend<strong>

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><p>Nowaki had realised that he was missing some ingredients for dinner. He had put on his rain coat and braved the short distance to the convenience store. The Usami-doll had offered to give him a ride but he had refused; it was too dangerous to drive in this weather. "Book reading weather," Hiro-san had pleasantly commented, to Nowaki's surprise.<p>

Nowaki again felt a brief hesitation before he emerged from the entry way. He couldn't see his Hiro-san from the door but, as he walked towards the kitchen he noticed Hiro-san's sleeping form on the longest couch, and tucked snugly against him, the life-sized doll. Hiro-san's head was on a cushion and the doll's head was on his arm. They were a tangle of arms and legs as Hiro-san spooned and cuddled her like a toy. She was so small. It was undoubtedly adorable. They were the two cutest things Nowaki had ever seen.

Nowaki quietly set down the groceries in the kitchen and stealthily went to the bedroom, emerging with a blanket and a guilty pleasure. Hiro-san's arm was like an arrow, limp fingers pointing directly to the book he had obviously fallen asleep reading, glasses having clattered to the ground near them. This was a common sight Nowaki had frequently come home to, except now, Hiro-san's other arm was cradling the adorable doll against him. Hiro's hair was wildly obscuring her face and both her small arms were clutching the book she had been reading against her chest. Nowaki slowly edged the book out from her tight embrace and affectionately moved her soft hair away from her face and behind her ear. She leaned into his touch a little but otherwise didn't stir.

He couldn't help his guilty pleasure today, and certainly not when they looked this adorable. With the flash turned off, he took the picture. Since he had been back from America this past year, his collection of cute Hiro-san related pictures was growing. The morning he was leaving for America, he realised that he had no pictures of Hiro-san. With his cell phone, he had quickly snapped a picture of Hiro-san's adorable sleepy face to keep him going through the cold, lonely nights. He knew Hiro-san hated taking pictures, and would probably murder him if he ever found out about his collection, but since that first candid shot of Hiro-san sleeping that morning and then their subsequent reunion, Nowaki had vowed not to miss one more adorable moment in Hiro-san's life. Nowaki put the expensive digital camera he had invested in into his pocket – high resolution, extremely slim and stealthy.

Nowaki covered them with the blanket, motherly tucking all the sides in. He gently picked Hiro-san's arm up, careful not to wake the doll lying on it, and placed it in a better folded position on the couch so his boyfriend wouldn't wake up with a dead arm. He ran his fingers through Hiro-san's hair and contently sighed.

"No...waki," Hiro-san mumbled and turned slightly, pulling the doll closer against him like she was a stuffed toy.

Nowaki didn't really know how long he had been waiting to hear Hiro-san say his name in that way, but it suddenly made his eyes glisten. There was something about the glaring truth of his sleepy confession that struck a chord with Nowaki. In his most unguarded, sleepy state, Hiro-san had sought for him, no one else, just him. He had succeeded.

"I love you too, Hiro-san," Nowaki whispered and kissed Hiro-san's unwrinkled forehead.

Nowaki stared at the little sleeping doll, softly breathing and content. She fitted so perfectly inside Hiro-san's arms, her head right beneath his chin and her little legs tangled between Hiro-san's thighs and ending just before his calf muscle. Her mouth was slightly open and she was adorably drooling just a little on Hiro-san's arm. Nowaki couldn't help it. He leaned down and softly kissed her forehead.

"Mmm...Hiro," she sleepily sighed.

Her sleepy confession confirmed Nowaki's suspicions. He wasn't the only one in love with Hiro-san, it seemed.

Nowaki wasn't sure about how he felt about that yet, but it surprised him that he didn't immediately feel threatened. Nowaki couldn't be sure about when exactly it had happened, but it was probably ever since Hiro-san had fought his senpai for him, that he had come to realise his partner's deep feelings for him. He no longer felt like they weren't just living together anymore, they were now together in many other ways as well. Their bond was strong, and somewhere along the way, Hiro-san had stopped running and he had stopped chasing. Hiro-san had promised to wait for him and walk beside him, and that's all he had ever wanted – for the depths of his feelings to be equally reflected in his lover's eyes. Whether it was Hiro-san's happiness, sorrow or debt, Nowaki wanted to share in it.

Nowaki leaned in and gently placed his lips against the doll's slightly parted ones. Her eyes shot open and her head soundly connected with Hiroki's chin in an attempt to move away.

"What was that for?" she asked as she hid her lips behind the blanket.

"What the hell is going on?" Hiroki groggily moaned as he slowly opened his eyes and rubbed his chin with the arm that was previously around her.

"Nothing," the other two said in unison.

"Urgh, did I fall asleep again?"

"Yes, but go back to sleep, I'll wake you up when dinner is ready," Nowaki said and ran his fingers through Hiroki's hair.

Hiroshi sat up and relinquished the blanket. "You drooled on my arm," Hiroki noted and began to unbutton his long-sleeved work shirt.

"Sorry," she absently replied and stood up.

"I need to get my gym bag from my car. I'll be back soon," Hiroshi said, but Nowaki got the impression that it was a ruse to run away.

"I'll get it for you," Nowaki offered, his long legs out pacing her and foiling her plans. He snatched her car keys from the kitchen counter and immediately left as Hiro-san stretched and stood up after discarding his work shirt on the couch.

Nowaki hadn't even asked which car was hers. When he had arrived home from the hospital, some boys and girls were taking pictures of themselves in front of a sleek silver sports car, and when she had offered to give him a ride, it had all clicked into place.

Retrieving the bag itself was effortless, but Nowaki's journey to and from the car was littered in needless conversations with neighbours about the awful storm outside, and before Nowaki even realised it, he had been gone for at least twenty minutes. When he arrived back inside the apartment no one was there. He called for Hiro-san but there was no sign of him or the doll. He began to systematically check all the rooms, afraid the doll might have said something to upset his lover. If Hiro-san had made her a promise and owed her this debt, then Nowaki felt it was his debt as well and he was willing to pay in all the kisses she wanted – he hadn't meant anything more by it.

"Hiro-san... Hiro-san?" Nowaki called once more as he opened the bathroom door.

The underwear she had just slipped out of loosely hung from her right hand as she stood there nakedly frozen in shock. Her long lilac hair covered her perky breasts, but everything else was bared. Nowaki stared at her, wide-eyed. Being a doctor, he often saw people naked, but not like this...and certainly no one that looked like her. Everything was smooth, petite, and hairless, waxed to perfection – if she was trying to get away from looking young, this was not the way to do it.

"I don't like hair," she defensively said when she realised his eyes were focused on her pelvis. She turned around, revealing her apple-cheeked bottom to him. She should have perhaps turned around sooner, but years of having people taking care of her and helping her wash and dress had removed that instinct.

"I'm so sorry, Usami-san," Nowaki said as he averted his eyes.

"Hiroki went down to get the mail," she deflected.

"Your bag's here," he said as he quickly placed it inside the bathroom and closed the door.

Just then Hiroki walked passed him and into their bedroom. "Got cornered in the elevator by a neighbour. Just because _you're_ nice, doesn't mean I am," Hiroki absently complained as he sifted through their mail. Once someone cornered Hiroki, he was raised too well to be rude, so he was just polite enough, nothing more.

Nowaki froze, stuck to the bathroom door, too nervous and embarrassed at his behaviour to move. It took a lot to make Nowaki blush, but at that moment he was an unmistakeable neon red, but Hiroki had thankfully been too preoccupied to look up. He shouldn't have stared; he really shouldn't have so obviously stared at her... He was mortified! He should probably apologise again when she gets out. Would an apology suffice for the picture he now couldn't remove from his mind, the picture now lighting up his face and his whole body like a beacon of shame? _Pervert, right here_, it bellowed.

By the time she came out of the bathroom, Nowaki was already putting the finishing touches on the meal. Hiro-san was sitting at the table and typing his last bit of research for the day. Hiro-san had lent her some sleeping clothes, a white t-shirt and sweat pants. It was truly a comical sight to see the doll drown in old clothes Hiro-san had grown out of. Nowaki always thought of Hiro-san as small and adorable and cute, but he was soon realising his lover's broad shoulders and lean, athletic physique were unmistakably masculine in comparison to the delicate fragility of the girl.

She walked a few steps into the open plan dining room, adjacent to the lounge, but stopped as Hiroki sniggered when the draw-stringed sweat pants she was wearing fell to the ground. She stepped out of them and picked them up off the ground, blushing slightly. The white t-shirt itself would suffice; it fell past her knees anyway, and was far longer than the skirt she had been wearing. She sat across from Hiroki and Nowaki sat at the head of the table between them once he'd finished bringing everything through.

"Your hair is going to end up in your food again," Hiroki said, as he leaned over the table and moved her still partially damp hair out of her eyes. She had only partially dried it with the hair dryer in the bathroom, not wanting to hold dinner up. "The colour is washing out," Hiroki noted as some of the disturbed strands shone a silvery blonde.

"Yeah, my hairstylist refuses to permanently colour it, something about it damaging the hair. It was an intense purple when it was coloured. I shouldn't let it get to my waist like this. I'll probably cut it all off soon anyway."

"No!" Nowaki interrupted. His beacon of shame threatened to light up again. "I mean, you hair really suits you this way," he mildly said. "But I think it would be nice to see your natural hair colour soon," he nervously added. He felt like he was propositioning her for some reason. Had he just suggested that they would be around to see her hair wash out to her natural colour? He couldn't understand why he suddenly felt so nervous and simultaneously guilty around her.

"Thanks," she absently replied as she skimmed all the food.

"I made you a _long island ice tea_, it's not just coke," Nowaki informed her as she peered over the glass. One of Nowaki part time jobs had been as a bartender, so he could pretty much mix her whatever she wanted if she didn't like it. Hiro-san always kept the alcohol well stocked, for emergencies – like when Akihiko came over to bitch about something and take refuge, usually because Misaki had kicked him out for pissing the boy off.

"About earlier Hiro-chan...," Nowaki contritely began.

"Don't worry about it, it was an honest mistake. And I know I'm a bit of a freak, but I have learnt to embrace the strange in me." She took a large gulp of her drink. "And this goes a long way towards repairing my bruised ego." She smiled at him.

"I'm really sorry for staring -"

"Then pour me another."

"Oh, me too," Hiroki said, briefly looking up from his laptop. "What were you staring at?"

"Nothing," Hiroshi answered for him and thrust her glass out. Nowaki thought about suggesting that they both slow down, but after the earlier juice box incident, he didn't think it wise. And if you couldn't beat them, join them. Nowaki downed his glass as well and brought them all a refill. She had just been dumped and needed to forget, so who was he to stop her from developing temporary amnesia.

Hiroki shut his laptop as Nowaki returned with the refills. "All yours, for now."

"We will be sure to cherish every moment," she teased.

"We've never gotten drunk together, one of the few things we haven't done with each other," Hiroki explained. "I've actually never seen you drunk." Now that he thought about it, she was usually the one taking care of Akihiko and him when they got smashed.

"That's because you're a cheap date. I could drink you under the table any day, Kamijou."

"Challenge accepted." Hiroki smirked. Being dumped was awful, even if she was putting up a brave face.

Nowaki didn't think this was a good idea, but they both suddenly looked up at him expectantly. Their pleading expressions were too adorable to resist and Nowaki indulgently folded.

After dinner, Nowaki transformed the low glass coffee table in the lounge into a bar of sorts. Hiroshi sat cross legged in front of the low table and leaned her back against the couch. Nowaki sat down next to her, also leaning against the couch and stretching his long legs out under the table. Hiroshi stretched her legs out in front of her, comparing them to Nowaki's next to her. Her dainty foot affectionately kicked him just below the knee as she warmly smiled at him, her soft lavender eyes playfully dancing.

Nowaki's heart started to race. The three long island ice teas were not helping his composure.

Hiroki only then emerged out of the bathroom, wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt and vigorously drying his hair. He sat down across the table from Hiroshi and stretched his legs out and onto her lap, she compliantly began to rub as he stretched his arms out and leaned his head back onto the couch behind him in a beautifully seductive way. Their eyes followed the smooth slope of his neck, up to his inviting Adam's apple, and then his strong jaw and his incredibly soft lips...

Hiroshi was the first to turn away. Hiroki had always been incredibly distracting. Hiroshi had often wondered how she would have reacted to Hiroki as a lecturer, she wasn't sure if he would have driven her to distraction and she would have failed, or if she would have tried to become the teacher's pet and excelled – probably the latter, she concluded – she did not accept failure in any form. His students were certainly lucky. She turned to look at the intensely lustful way Nowaki was staring at Hiroki and was glad that she was not the only one who had gotten distracted. She really was mostly happy for them. Unlike Nowaki who would no doubt be ravishing that later, and was probably storing mental pictures of where he would first be exploring, Hiroshi knew she was just torturing herself with a temptation she thought she had conquered.

"I thought we were drinking, Nowaki-kun?"

"Sure, what will it be?" Nowaki asked after being startled back to reality.

"How about a screaming orgasm?" Hiroki suggested, the three drinks obviously already affecting him.

"Whore."

"How would you know?" he cheekily replied as he lifted his head to look at her through his visor of towel dried hair.

"I suppose I'm one of the few people who wouldn't," she evenly threw back.

"Here you go Hiro-chan," Nowaki said as he handed her a drink, trying to head off the bickering he felt was going to begin. The doll may have been little, but she didn't seem like someone to be trifled with – not that Hiro-san couldn't verbally brawl with the best of them, but something told him that they would all end up in tears this time.

To Nowaki's surprise, Hiroki leaned over the table and gently kissed her on the forehead. "Truce," he said as he sat down again. Hiroki had obviously also read the danger in her voice, and since he had the most to lose by something random tumbling out of her mouth, he decided to let it go.

"So, how long were you fucking this one?" Hiroki asked after he had finished his screaming orgasm. He always became excessively talkative and inquisitive when he was tipsy. He had wanted to ask her about it for a while, but his good manners kept him from prying, but he understood that she knew what she was getting herself into when she had agreed to drink with him.

"Hiro-san!" Nowaki scolded.

"Don't worry about it, Nowaki-kun, I'm used to the magnification of his profanity when he gets drunk," she explained. Hiroki began to worry – she was obviously not as tipsy as he was, maybe she would drink him under the table.

"Did you _care _for him?" Hiroki asked more seriously.

"Six months," was her only reply.

"What did he do? I mean, how did you guys meet?" Hiroki was hoping she hadn't dated someone from work as it would make the situation all the more uncomfortable for her.

"Six months seems like a long time, but we were both very busy and barely got time to see eachother. I'm never dating a doctor again." Hiroki burst out laughing at her declaration. "Why is that funny?"

"What was his name? Perhaps I know him?" Nowaki inquired.

"Why would you know him, Nowaki-kun? He's a cardio-thoracic _attending_ at the hospital not far from here," she revealed.

"Nowaki is a _resident_ there," Hiroki explained.

"I suppose you won't spread this story around, but I feel awkward...,"

"It's oaky then Hiro-chan -"

"Screw you two, I want to know so spill it," Hiroki demanded.

"Um... Ishida Uryuu, you know him Hiroki – his dad runs Karakura Hospital."

"Ishida senpai! He's brilliant, top in his field, even though he's still so young. He's a really nice guy once you get past the stiff exterior, really helpful...," Nowaki rambled, but then suddenly stopped when he realised he was fangirling over the guy who had just dumped Hiro. "But he's probably an awful boyfriend, spends too much time at work...," Nowaki quickly changed his tune to one he thought he should be following. No one wants to hear about how wonderful the guy who just dumped them is, no matter how true it may be.

"You're right Nowaki-kun, he is pretty great," Hiro agreed and took a big gulp of her drink. _"…in bed,"_ she regretfully added in her head.

"Fucker was number one in Japan when he entered Teito Medical School," Hiroki grumbled. She had always liked intelligent men, but genius could be isolating. "How did you two meet?" Hiroki did know him, and they seemed like an unlikely pair, even though he had to admit that the man was attractive as hell – tall, black hair, blue eyes, a haunting expression. If the guy wasn't straight and as stiff as a fucking board, Hiroki would have probably propositioned him when they had been reacquainted a few years ago.

"I was at a used books store, as usual. You wouldn't believe the treasures they had there that day. I fell off a chair when I was trying to get to a book on one of the higher shelves and he caught me," she revealed. She really hated being short.

"That sounds so romantic," Nowaki sincerely said, eyes sparkling at the thought. He could almost see Ishida senpai's deep blue eyes staring into the doll's as he protectively held her close inside his strong arms. Just then Nowaki realised he should stop relating everything back to the shojou mangas he stealthily read behind Hiro-san's back.

"It was, but I guess the romance ended when he heard Kamijou-san grill me about when I was going to give her grandchildren. I sometimes wonder if she's praying for me to get knocked up so it will force us to finally marry." Hiroshi looked a little disgusted with the thought. "Don't worry, I'm on every type of contraceptive you can think of so I don't pop out something that doesn't look like you," she said, turning to Hiroki who had blanched at his mother's intrusiveness. "Not that I'm planning on popping anything out at all, regardless of how much it would mean to my family. Children shouldn't be raised the way I was. I am too selfish to give them the attention they need and too intelligent to dumbly bring them into the world and fuck it up," she said as she downed her drink.

"Did you _love_ him?" Hiroki softly asked once more, his eyes suspiciously unfocused.

"I don't know, probably not – you know I don't know how to truly love anything. If he was that important to me, should I not have cherished him more?"

"Perhaps," Hiroki conceded, not in the mood to argue the point.

"I at the very least did not want to hurt him like I have." Though she felt it was a bit presumptuous to assume that her boyfriend… her _ex-boyfriend_ had cared enough about the relationship to be hurt in any lasting way.

"Are you sure the relationship can't be fixed?" Nowaki optimistically asked. Ishida senpai really was a great guy, and if anything could be done to salvage the relationship, it should be.

"It's over. What would the point of that be? I won't hurt him again," she sighed and handed Nowaki her glass for a refill. All she wanted to do was forget about the look on Ishida's face when he had given her an ultimatum – Hiroki or him. The choice was too quickly made and it had hurt him further.

"Let's play a drinking game, how about truth or dare," Hiroki suggested, trying to steer the conversation away from the melancholy path it was wobbling down.

"Sure Hiro-san," Nowaki brightly chirped, also welcome for the distraction.

Hiroki never played this game with his loving boyfriend. Nowaki had taken all the fun out of the game by earnestly saying, "You don't have to play a game, Hiro-san, I'll do whatever it is that you want me to do or say, all you have to do is ask."

"I'll go first," Hiroki decided. "Hiro, truth or dare?" There was such challenge in Hiroki's voice that Hiroshi felt she could not back down, even though she knew Hiroki played dirty. The last time they played this game, she ended up watching Hiroki and Akihiko making out after a thinly veiled dare from Hiroki.

"Truth," she quickly chose before Hiroki could dare her to run naked down the halls of the building or something. There was no way she was doing that again.

"Who was the first person you slept with?"

"I was in school with him. I was sixteen and in my last year of high school. He was 18, and he probably didn't even know I was two years younger than everyone else in class. Aki and Hiroki made sex seem like nothing but a hug, just far more pleasurable, so I was curious," she revealed.

"You should have waited, you were too young," Hiroki chided.

"I was still older than you were your first time."

"You're skirting around the issue, who was it?" Hiroki reiterated.

"Saga Masamune. The sex was a bit awkward at first, but we got used to it and it improved. Maybe it's a girl thing, but I eventually felt like there should be more to it, but there wasn't. When I tried to get closer to him, he retreated and we soon broke up." Just like she knew they would. Broken people could only be broken near each other, not broken together, she thought as she glanced over at Hiroki.

"Why did you chose him?" Nowaki asked. The decision to do something for the first time, especially sex, was a difficult decision to make and Nowaki was truly curios why she hadn't given her virginity to Hiro-san considering the way she had obviously felt about him, especially back then.

"He was stoically tragic. I saw that damaged part of myself reflected in him, maybe I wanted to fix that, thinking that if I could fix him then there would be hope for me, or maybe I chose him because I knew from the start that it would never get serious." Perhaps the alcohol was affecting her, she realised – she would have never normally been that honest but she felt like Nowaki's open expression had dragged it out of her, unwilling as he was. "I met him again recently, and he's doing a lot better now, we often e-mail or chat, but his surname weirdly changed to Takano once his parents divorced," she said more brightly as Nowaki understandingly smiled at her and ran his heated hands through her hair.

Hiroki started choking on his drink. "Not, Takano Masamune?"

"Fuck, Hiroki, no!" She slammed her glass down on the table.

"It was eight years ago and just once. We were both a bit self-destructive back then," he said as he put a soothing hand on her leg beneath the table.

"I have willingly given you many of my firsts, but I never wanted you to have this, and certainly not in this way," she said, the tightness in her voice evident.

"I have never asked for any of your firsts," he gruffly countered, his forehead furrowing into his familiar scowl as he looked upon her petulant posture, arms folded over her chest and lips bitten to resist childishly pouting.

Her pout was released as she suddenly smiled at something. "I know, but I was six at the time and you were crying so profusely, how could I not kiss you. You must admit, you did stop crying though," she cheekily said. She tried to push aside her irritation – they were nothing but friends, and she had no right to get upset at him about something he could not have foreseen or changed now.

"I'd like to beat Akihiko into the ground for teaching you that habit. He had also tried it out on me a few days earlier," Hiroki revealed. That was Akihiko alright, always tempting him with a taste of affection, but nothing beyond the moment their lips parted.

"Damn Akihiko! He was always beating me to all your firsts," she sighed and sipped her drink. "It's my turn to ask, isn't it?" They all knocked back absinth shooters Nowaki had just finished lighting. "Truth or dare, Nowaki-kun?" she asked as she nudged him with her little shoulder.

"Truth, of course." He smiled his breath-taking smile at her. She looked really sweet when she was tipsy, a little unfocused, but sweet none the less.

"Nowaki-kun, who was your first love?" she brightly asked, utterly tipsy by now and bouncing happily like a child on a sugar high.

"Hiro-san, of course," Nowaki replied without hesitation.

"It's no fun playing with him, Hiroki, he's too direct. I feel cheated."

"I know." Hiroki leaned over the table and suddenly kissed Nowaki, passionately. It made Hiroki incredibly happy to be with someone like Nowaki at that moment – he rarely had to guess Nowaki's feelings, and for someone with as much self-doubt as Hiroki, that was an astoundingly comforting thing to have in a lover.

"Is it my turn?" Nowaki asked, radiantly beaming. Hiro-san's defences must really be down today, he hadn't seen Hiro-san this openly content in a while. He had already gotten a sleepy confession and a compliment from his lover toady, and he wondered what more he could drag out of him before he closed up again. "I'm not sure how to play," he innocently admitted.

"Well, ask either of us something you think we would not want to answer or do," she instructed. "But there are few things that I would not do, so I suggest you ask Hiroki."

"Hey, I'm not that drunk yet. Stop fucking getting me into trouble, Hiro," Hiroki grumbled while doing another shooter. He should probably slow down, she thought to herself but said nothing as her own head felt a bit light at that moment.

"Truth or dare, Hiro-san?" Nowaki darkly asked.

"Fuck it – dare! I'm not answering anything embarrassing you pervert," he hiccupped as he said it.

"Um...Can we do a body shot off of you? I've seen it done, and I've always wanted to try." Nowaki blushed a little and innocently smiled.

"No! And what do you mean 'we'?" Hiroki protested, turning a deep shade of red himself.

"Hiro-chan's my partner in crime," Nowaki moaned. "Please Hiro-san, it's a dare after all."

"No, you go ahead, Nowaki-kun. I've done a body shot before." Hiroshi was feeling really uncomfortable ever since their kiss, and was trying to concoct a reason to leave them to it since she was seeing the steamy turn the evening was taking. She had spent enough years being Akihiko and Hiroki's unwanted third wheel, only being tolerated by her older brother and his best friend. With the way she was feeling about being dumped that afternoon, she really didn't want history to repeat itself.

"Fine, but then I'm out for the rest of the game," Hiroki agreed.

"Really Hiro-san? You're the best," Nowaki said and leaned over and ruffled Hiroki's hair. Nowaki crawled on the floor towards Hiroki who hesitantly leaned away, unsure of his boyfriend's intentions.

"I'm just helping you with your shirt, Hiro-san," Nowaki's voice deepened considerably as he said it. He moved between a panicked Hiro-san's thighs as his boyfriend's retreat was thwarted by the couch behind him. Nowaki slipped his practiced hands under Hiro-san's shirt, teasingly moving them up his sides, and then pulling the white t-shirt over his lover's head as Hiro-san compliantly lifted his arms in surrender.

"The couch would probably be most comfortable, Hiro-san," Nowaki whispered while intently staring into his lover's beautiful sienna eyes. Nowaki knew what this tone of voice did to his lover, how compliant it often made him when he was in this malleable tipsy state, and how happy it made Nowaki when Hiro-san placed all his fears aside and trusted in him.

Nowaki held Hiro-san's jaw and stood up, his lover obediently flowing him. "One shot each...that's all," Hiroki stuttered, trying to regain some kind of footing in this situation.

"Yes, Hiro-san, if that's what you want." Nowaki guided a flustered Hiro-san to lay back down on the long couch he had found him sleeping on earlier.

Nowaki poured two shots. "Nowaki-kun, you seriously don't have to share your dare with me," Hiroshi tried to assure him behind a rising red she couldn't control. She felt like something else was going on, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"Nonsense, we both owe you a huge debt for what you've been doing for Hiro-san," Nowaki sincerely said, smiling a crooked intoxicated grin at her. "It's a harmless game and one little body shot," he justified. "You can do one off of me if you'd prefer," Nowaki offered.

"No, no, this is fine, Nowaki-kun," she quickly added. This was undoubtedly less intimate than when she had kissed Hiro-san earlier and he found her reluctance difficult to understand given her feelings for his boyfriend.

Nowaki found the salt shaker and the saucer of lemons in between the bottles of alcohol on the coffee table. "Close your eyes Hiro-san," Nowaki instructed, reverting to his seductive tone again and unwinding Hiro-san's arms that he had clutched around himself while they spoke. Hiro-san hesitated at first, but then obeyed as Nowaki leaned closer in warning.

Nowaki stroked Hiroki's lips with his thumb and they desperately parted in a quiver. He placed a lemon slice between them and Hiro-san's lips tightened around the sour sensation. "Keep your eyes closed until I say so," Nowaki commanded. Nowaki licked a straight line up Hiro-san's toned abdomen, close to his belly button. Nowaki notice Hiro-san stifle the moan he knew the sensual teasing would normally illicit. He shook a generous sprinkling of salt above the lick, forming a partially broken white line against the olive of Hiro-san's skin. He placed the shot glass full of tequila on Hiro-san's sternum.

He looked over at the doll, who immediately shook her head. He stealthily crawled over to her and pulled her to her feet without much resistance. He stood behind her and encouraged her forward. "You first," he whispered into her ear from behind, making her shiver out of instinct. They both kneeled down in front of the couch, Nowaki at Hiro-san's head so he would have a good view, and the doll in the middle of his torso so she would be able to reach everything. Hiro-san was quivering in anticipation by then, as the doll clasped her hands behind her back and leaned over the line of salt. The adorably hesitant way she looked to Nowaki for assurance made his emotions stir and stoked the fire of his intoxicated desire in that moment.

Her pink tongue darted out and swept up the salty line, quickly followed by her lips curling around the shot glass and knocking it back before returning it to Hiro-san's chest and then quickly accepting the tangy sourness as her lips met Hiro-san's and she sucked on the lemon while all the while intently staring at Nowaki's lustful expression.

She sat back on her knees. Once she had completely removed the lemon from both her and Hiro-san's lips, she returned to looking thoroughly confused about what was happening and questioningly looked at Nowaki's wide leer.

"What took you guys so fucking long? I can't believe even your tongue's cold, Hiro," Hiorki complained due to the shiver that had raced up his spine from the brief touch. "Can I open my eyes now? I need a drink too," he added as he ran his fingers through his partially damp hair.

"Not yet, Hiro-san," Nowaki growled next to his ear in that same effective way. Even though Hiro-san would deny it and beat him to death for even suggesting it, Nowaki knew that in this one instance, Hiro-san liked to be told what to do, to be led, to give in and be released from his mental prison.

Nowaki shifted slightly and stealthily adjusted a growing problem he was having. He picked up the salt and resalted the spot where she had licked her way up. Hiroshi was trying to edge away when Nowaki pulled her to where he was, next to Hiro-san's head. Nowaki changed places with her and replaced all the necessary ingredients for his first ever body shot. Now that he knew what he had to do, he found it difficult to contain his excitement, and the thought of the doll watching him claim his Hiro-san, excited him even more.

The slow wet heat of Nowaki's tongue ran up the salted line as he stared Hiroshi down. He expertly knocked back the shot and winced slightly as the salt was washed away and replaced with a burn along his throat. He desperately sucked at the lemon between Hiro-san's lips, quickly discarding it and diving into the passionate kiss he could not restrain any longer. His hands hungrily ran down Hiro-san's sides until he was finally pushed away. Hiro-san's was panting too much from the intensity to even scold him.

"We...have company...you dumbass," Hiro-san finally managed.

"I'm sorry, Hiro-chan, I forgot for a minute," Nowaki genuinely said, beaming like the cat that got the canary.

"Um...Sure...no problem," she said, her eyes averted and pretending to read the tequila bottle's label. "Just call me Hiro, okay," she added, not really knowing what else to say at that moment.

"Hiro, pour me a drink," Hiroki requested, his face flushed and in his hands. Hiroki quickly drained his drink and refilled it as they all resumed their previous seats on the floor. Hiroki felt uneasy about Hiro seeing him kiss another man, even if was Nowaki this time. He did not want to see that look reflected in her eyes again. He did not want her to run out of his life once more.

"My turn. Best kisser, Hiro?" Hiroki asked in a bit of a drawl. "Present company excluded, of course," he conceitedly added, smiling around the rim of his glass.

She let his ego maintain the assumption. "Probably one of my girlfriends. Girls are notoriously better kissers than boys," she nonchalantly added.

"Girlfriend? But..." Hiroki's jaw threatened to dislodge itself. "I thought you were just really close friends with all those girls." She had told him about her girlfriends on previous occasions when they had been drinking, but Hiroki never seemed to remember the next morning, so Hiroshi had taken it as a sign that he perhaps did not want to know anything about it.

"It was a lot easier to maintain female relationships, everyone always just assumed we were just affectionate, close friends. Girls can hug and kiss and hold hands without suspicion, but that's not the only reason I tried it," she explained. "My best friend was really beautiful and caring, and when she finally confessed to me, I found myself wanting to be with her as something more than what we had been. But in all honesty, it probably had a lot to do with, the deep, soulful, passionate way she kissed me – it made me feel like I was about to cum every time. She was undoubtedly the best kisser."

Nowaki swallowed hard just thinking about it. "What happened to you two?"

"She was also bisexual, though I only use the limiting label for succinctness. She wanted more than I was willing to give and now she is happily married and expecting her first child," Hiro casually said as she finished yet another drink.

"So you're not bisexual?" Hiroki tried to clarify. Hiroki felt like he was having a serious case of déjà vu. The openness of her sexuality should not have surprised him given how she and Akihiko were raised, seeking affection wherever they could find it, but it somehow did.

"Sexuality is fluid and labels like 'bisexual' try to put people in boxes and limit their experience of it. Why should I have to label myself? I am what I am, and I will fuck whomever I want," she heatedly stated. "I am capable of making my mind up about someone on a case by case basis. I am not attracted to every woman, just like I am not attracted to every man. Why should I exclude a whole gender, or mark myself as bisexual and as such different from someone who is not?"

"Fuck, Hiro, I was just asking. Calm down, you know I feel the same," Hiroki sternly said. Who was she to lecture him of all people about this! Akihiko had turned him on to guys and simultaneously left him unsatisfied, and as a confused teenager he had debated his feeling and struggled against them until he had come to the decision not to judge himself by everyone else's standards. Hiroki had also decided to love without condition, even if his love was unrequited at the time.

"Um... It's your turn, Hiro," Nowaki interrupted, trying to steer them away from further bickering. They both glared at each other for a moment longer.

She knew she shouldn't do it, that she should leave it alone, but in her intoxicated state, her recklessness won out over her sense. "Nowaki-kun, who was the first guy you had sex with?" Hiro had been silently piecing all the pieces of this puzzle together all afternoon and was pretty sure she knew the answer.

"Oh, um...," he rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not as experienced as you or Hiro-san. Hiro-san is the only man I've ever been with. I know it's boring," he sheepishly added.

"It's not boring at all, Nowaki-kun. It's really special," Hiro said and ran her cool fingers through his heated hair. Hiroki hated to feel special in any way, and Hiroshi knew how embarrassed he would feel now that he knew, but in her intoxicated state, she thought he deserved to know how special he was, even if it wasn't her who said it.

"What do you mean I'm the only _man_ you've ever been with?" Hiroki finally asked after the shock he had been seeped in wore off. Hiroki had heard an inflection in Nowaki's tone that had set his mind ablaze. It surely could not be true...

"Well, I've been with a few of my girlfriends before you, Hiro-san," Nowaki innocently explained. "I wasn't a virgin or anything when we 'did it'," he plainly spoke. "Why, did I seem like a virgin?" he worriedly added.

"No, I suppose not," Hiroki non-committally mumbled as he processed things. Hiroki, who was both ashamed and secretive about his previous love life, had felt like it would be unfair to interrogate Nowaki about his, and so he had never asked, and now he was thoroughly regretting that decision. "Do you like _girls_?" he asked as his eyes were downcast.

"I guess I do like girls in general, but I love _you_, Hiro-san," he sincerely said. "Only you," he added. The earnestness with which Nowaki said it left no doubt in Hiroki's mind about his lover's affection, but it was a hard truth for him to swallow.

Hiroki's entire body was engulfed in a crimson display. "I think Hiro explained it best earlier: on a case by case basis, you are my only exception. I love you, Hiro-san," he said as he leaned over and kissed his adorably embarrassed and protesting Hiro-san.

She hadn't meant to open up this can of worms. "I'm sorry, Nowaki-kun, I...I didn't mean to pry," she said, running her fingers through her hair and then leaning her head back onto the couch and closing her eyes. Their happiness made her heart ache, and in all honesty, she wouldn't mind some happiness herself. She hated the selfish thought that had popped into her head at that moment – perhaps she was just like Akihiko, she sighed.

Nowaki who was seated next to her leaned in and kissed her parted sighing lips. "It's okay, Hiro," he said as he smiled down at her caressed her cheek.

"What was that?" Hiroki protested.

"Payback," Nowaki simply stated. "When you're indebted to someone, so am I, we're partners after all."

"But..." Hiroki feebly stuttered. She was _his_ girlfriend, and Nowaki was _his_ boyfriend. It was a difficult web to untangle in his inebriated state.

"I'm not a chore that both of you shirk onto each other. I don't want any of this. I'm not a toy and I won't be played with so you can piss each other off," she shouted, tears welling up in her eyes. She brought her knees up to her chest and curled herself up into a ball, bowing her head beneath her arms as she hugged herself close.

She shrugged Nowaki's arm off as he tried to comfort her. "I'm sorry, Hiro, that's not what I meant."

Without warning, even the energy in the room seemed to shift. Cold crept in from the raging storm and they were all happy for the noise that attempted to fill the growing silence.

"Would you both forgive me for retiring early?" she calmly said as she stood up, without a trace of a tear to betray her. "The room next to the main bedroom, right?"

"Hiro...," Hiroki called. He felt like he had fucking put his foot in it again and he was still just as clueless as to why it had affected her so much. She was usually tough, resilient, and logical…kisses meant nothing to her. So why was she in so much pain? he wondered.

"I'm fine. We're all being really silly about this. Probably drank too much; we should sleep it off. Just forget everything, not that you'll even remember half of it, Hiroki," she said as she smiled down at him.

She carefully stepped over Nowaki's long legs so she could leave. He stood up behind her and caught her arm. She looked down at his hand securely holding her in place. She seemed panicked, like she wanted to scream and run but didn't. "I'm sorry, I should have never kissed you without your permission," Nowaki repentantly said.

"It's fine, Nowaki-kun, really," she nervously said as she tried to wriggle her hand lose. It wasn't the kiss that was a problem, but the implication that terrified her. For a large part of her life, Akihiko and Hiroki had treated her like she was as insubstantial as air. Kissing her meant nothing to Hiroki, like he was kissing his favourite stuffed toy; it was a lot of affection and tenderness without any passion. Now here was Nowaki, a man she had just met, treating her exactly the same way, like a play thing. She couldn't handle being that anymore. She wondered if there was something fundamentally wrong with her.

Nowaki let go of her as Hiroki stood up, wanting to comfort her as well, but she quickly turned and left for their guest room before any more could be said. Hiroki held Nowaki back when he wanted to follow her; he knew what she was like, that it would be useless to talk to her now, not while she had that fucking polite persona on. Perhaps they could all just do with some time.

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><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

I actually did not initially mean for it to turn out this angsty and dark, but it did and I find that I'm okay with that. I have tried to work on my writing from the last chapter and I hope it was evident here.

Ishida Uryuu is a borrowed character from Bleach that I have missed writing about, so I threw him in for spice since he would actually fit really well and because most people would know about his character and appearance, which takes a lot of descriptive weight off of my shoulders. I'm not sure why, but everytime I write Ishida, I end up breaking his heart in some way.

Saga/Takano Masamune is a borrowed character from Junjou's partner series Sekaiichi Hatsukoi. Takano vaguely talked about this girlfriend he had in high school before Ritsu and how he broke up with her when she wanted more out of the relationship, so I thought why not. He also later has this self destructive phase in college and his fluid sexuality is always hinted at, so I thought I wouldn't be bending too much.

Fluid Sexuality: I'm going to be self-reflexive here and acknowledge that my own views about the fluidity of sexuality have influenced my writing here, and I understand that not everyone will agree with this concept. I'm not using sexual fluidity as a euphemism for promiscuity. Labels are distancing tools and define both who we are and who we are not, and often try to discount the complexity of an experience in favour of generalised familiarity. I feel like I'm launching into a debate here and that this perhaps may not be the right place. PM me if you want to debate it out with me.

**Thank you to all the reviewers:**

_I've never really done this before, but I saw another author do it, and it really made me feel special when they replied to my review in their fic, so I decided to try it out._

**Damons-hot-as-hell:** I'm glad that you liked it. Sorry you don't like that she's his girlfriend. Does it help that it's really only in name?

**Soulfighter-17:** I was so happy that you liked my OC, I was so worried about introducing her in the mix. You said you loved angst, so I hope this chapter fulfilled your angsty hopes.

**No-Name:** Um...I'd rather you left a thoughtful review rather than a name, so I was happy. I'm glad you are enjoying my portrayal of all the characters. Well the chapter didn't turn M, but I hope you enjoyed the brief racy parts. I'm a bit confused about what you meant about Nowaki and the OC. Please elaborate if you have time.

**ILuvHiro:** I'd really like to give you a big shout out and thanks for your kind words and encouragement. I told you, I'm too stubborn to give up, so I hope you enjoyed another long chapter. I'm really glad you liked my OC and I felt you had a good grasp of my intentions with the last chapter. I hope to develop all characters more fully in the future.

**X:** You're review made me fangirl. As undeserving as I feel, I thank you for your praise. I hope you were not too disappointed with a chapter unpacking some of Nowaki this time, since it was about _Boyfriends_, but I hope to cycle back to Hiroki in the future if my work is well received. But I have a feeling that the things I have said in this chapter might be the death of me.

**Miss Misty:** Even if you incinerate me, I will rise from the ashes like the resilient phoenix I am. Thank you for everything. I have taken all you have said into consideration and I hope this chapter shows some improvement. Salt is also used to enhance the flavour of food, so I hope I have not been heavy handed in this chapter.

**Erin:** You're fantastic. Thank you for reading and intelligently appreciating both my stories. You're right, it was a bit rushed. I will get back to Supernova soon.

**Deepest Night:** Did I not pay up with those drinks! You know me too well; I was too stubborn to stop writing this story. *****Any similarity to real events and characters is purely coincidental and is in no way based on any events or persons, alive or dead*** -** isn't that what Akihiko said? (Hugs)

**YaoiFan:** I'm glad you liked the chapter and my OC. I hope this Nowaki-centered chapter was entertaining and accurate.

As always, I would appreciate feedback in the form of a **REVIEW**.

~Willow~


	3. The Unrequited

**Unrequited Loves**

_By Willow Athena_

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Junjou Romantica or Bleach or any of its characters, but I take responsibility for the content of this story.

**Author's note:** There has not been much interest in this fanfic, but I cannot leave this story as it was, so forgive my indulgence in publishing this. I am incredibly stubborn and certifiably obsessive. If you decide to continue reading, I hope it will not be a complete waste of your time.

**Warning:** Female OC interacting with characters normally found in yaoi, but nothing dodgy, I promise.

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><p><strong>CHAPTER 3 – The Unrequited<strong>

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><p>"She threw a book at me," Nowaki said as he rubbed his chest.<p>

"You're lucky that's all she did to you, Akihiko is far worse," Hiroki informed him as he donned some clothes for his trip to the bathroom. He rubbed that familiar ache at the base of his spine. Hiroki tried to push aside the vague memory of attacking a reluctant and concerned Nowaki last night.

Even though they had slept in and it was already 9 am, Hiroki still felt a bit tipsy when he woke up. Nowaki had been trying to wake them both up for an half an hour now. Hiroki wasn't too clear on everything that happened last night, and it was all Hiroshi's fault, and all of this when Hiroki was envisioning a nice scholarly weekend at home with his research.

Nowaki and Hiroki walked out of their bedroom to find a bleary eyed Hiroshi reluctantly creep out of the spare room, adorably dragging an enormous panda behind her. Hiroki had recently won the four foot tall panda for Nowaki after being guilted into attending a funfair with his sentimental boyfriend. It seemed, Hiroki was really good at archery, to Nowaki's gleeful surprise.

"Nowaki, I think I may be dying," she said as she leaned herself and the panda against the wall next to the bathroom door.

She obviously didn't get drunk often enough, Hiroki thought. She was surely just hung over, even though she looked a little pale and weak.

Nowaki kneeled down to where she was sitting inside the panda's fury arms. He put his hand on her pasty forehead. It was probably nothing, he thought, but he wanted to get a closer look at the adorable, defenceless picture she cast. "You probably just need to freshen up and eat something, Hiro," Nowaki said.

"Girls first," Hiroshi suggested as she placed her little foot on the opposite wall of the corridor to block Hiroki's path.

"Can you even stand?" Hiroki asked.

Nowaki gently pulled her up. She slowly walked through the bathroom door. She tentatively lifted her arms to pull the t-shirt off but stopped midway. "I'm definitely dying," she sighed.

"Do you need help?" Nowaki cheerfully asked. He had already seen her naked anyway, he reasoned, and he was a doctor.

"No, you finish making breakfast," Hiroki instructed as he walked into the bathroom. "I'll help her."

Nowaki noticed the blush Hiroki's last words induced and wondered if Hiro-san was just a little jealous after last night's revelations. Nowaki would never…and certainly not with Hiro-san's girlfriend. He often found Hiro-san's irrational leaps amusing, and undoubtedly adorable. Nowaki would have thought the pounding he had given Hiro-san last night would have quelled all his lover's irrational fears about the subject, but it was now clear to Nowaki that he would be paying for that revelation for years to come.

Nowaki had been woken up at 8 that morning and was asked to come in to the hospital early due to the high number of accidents the storm had generated the previous day. He had slowly gotten up and taken a shower at 8:15, then taken some painkillers and started trying to wake both sleepy heads up for breakfast before he left at 10. Nowaki would probably have to banana-bag himself once he got to work, to make sure he would be performing at optimum – I mean, no one wants a tipsy doctor sewing them up. The hospital would really owe him big for this – he'd probably get the whole of Sunday and Monday off as a result.

Hiroki ran the shower for her until it was the right temperature. He watched her sit on the edge of the bath with her head down. He wondered if he should bring up last night's misunderstandings at all. He wanted to apologise for his part, though he knew the words would stick in his throat. Although he couldn't remember exactly what he'd said, he had the feeling that a few thoughtless comments had escaped his lips.

"Hiro, come here." She looked unsteady as she walked towards him. She looked a bit queasy as she lifted her hands to help him take her shirt off. "You're tiny, just put your arms through the sleeves," he said as he guided them through until they were both inside. He saw her cover her breasts inside the shirt and chuckled. After all the times he had seen her running around naked, ever since she was six years old, she was now suddenly embarrassed. He pulled the loose white t-shirt over her head.

Her hands were crossed over her chest, shielding her breasts, not that he was really looking. He noticed the bright blue underwear she wore with little yellow chicks on it. She backed away when he put his hands on the edges of it.

"I think I can get that," she said, still not looking at him.

"Fine, I'll turn around and stand at the door, and when you manage to get into the shower, I'll leave. I can't have you falling through the shower door and bleeding all over my new apartment."

"Mm…," she assented as he walked away.

"Will I ever get over the indignity of this?" she asked as she removed her last piece of clothing.

"Surprisingly, yes, and much faster than you think. How many times have you done this for me and Akihiko over the years," Hiroki warmly reminded.

"Too many to count I suppose," she replied as she stepped into the shower and closed the door.

She looked a bit different than the last time he had seen her naked, Hiroki noted as he glanced away from the mirror next to the door. He was glad Nowaki hadn't seen this, he thought, as exited the bathroom.

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><p>Hiroshi sat with her head on the table as Nowaki brought breakfast through and Hiroki finished showering. She was in another one of Hiroki's t-shirts since she only had one change of clothes in her gym bag and did not feel up to the complexity of dressing up.<p>

"Here, take these," Nowaki said as he handed her some painkillers. If she didn't start to feel better after they ate, Nowaki was going to take her with him to the hospital. She might have alcohol poisoning considering her small size.

"About last night…," Nowaki hesitantly began. She and Hiro-san could hide away from it all they wanted, but Nowaki was a pretty straightforward person, and these types of things ate away at him if he didn't address them.

"We really don't have to talk about it Nowaki-kun," she nervously said, her eyes widening.

"You are a part of Hiro-san's life, and you care about him so much, I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you –"

"I know that…," she tried to interrupt, but Nowaki was determined to get it all out.

"…and if I did anything to make you feel like I was playing a game with you, I am really sorry. I know you don't know me, but I would never insincerely kiss anyone. Kissing you was a stupid idea and I should have thought about your feelings as well, and for that I am sorry. You kiss Hiro-san because you love him, and I should have realised that kissing me would not be the same for you, no matter how harmless I thought it was."

She had sat back in her chair, in stunned silence, watching Nowaki's intensity and sincerity as he spoke, and now she didn't know what to do. He was too direct and had left her no wiggle room between the truths. She felt that it would be pointless denying loving Hiroki now.

"It's complicated," she finally said. She wondered if there were ever two more loaded words. "I know it's messed up. Last night had nothing to do with you and very little to do with Hiroki either. It was all my baggage, my damage soaking through." She looked down at the glass of water in her hands.

"My boyfriend…," she began saying then stopped, realising she hadn't yet let go of the relationship. She looked up at Nowaki who was patiently waiting for her to continue. His right hand was twitching like he wanted to reach out and comfort her but was curbing the instinct.

"My _ex-boyfriend_ told me…"

"Don't worry about that guy," Hiroki said as he walked into the room. "You can do better." That's what friends were supposed to say, right, Hiroki thought. There was no point in moping about something irreparable.

"Yeah, you're probably right. I can only handle one entitled genius in my life at a time," she said.

"Why thank you." Hiroki conceitedly smiled at her.

"I was talking about myself," she dryly threw back.

Breakfast continued without incident until Nowaki had to rush off to the hospital. She seemed in better spirits after eating, but Nowaki had the sneaking suspicion that he had missed the opportunity to find out something important.

* * *

><p>"Nowaki just phoned, he wants us to meet him at the bar down the road for a drink or a light supper or something," Hiroki informed her.<p>

She looked up at the time; it was already 8 at night. Hiroki should have told her Nowaki's hours when she said she didn't want to leave without saying goodbye, but he probably wasn't paying attention again. "I'm just saying goodbye," she sternly said.

"Don't look at me, take it up with Nowaki, I'm just the messenger," Hiroki said as he finally snapped his laptop shut. Hiroki had been surprised by the comfortable ease of the day he had spent with her, and even if he wouldn't voice it, he was reluctant for it to end. It had been nice to have someone with whom he could bounce ideas off of and debate complicated passages of his work with.

She placed the book she had been reading on the coffee table and stood up. She had recognised Akihiko's nom-de-plume and was surprised to find out that her brother wrote the BL novels that were hidden in the spare room she had slept in. She was even more surprised to find out that her brother had used Hiroki and Nowaki's relationship as fodder for one of them. The spine of the book had never been cracked before she had unlocked the secret and she wondered when she would drop that bombshell on her reclusive boyfriend.

"Is this okay?" she asked, gesturing to her clothes. She wore dark blue jeans and a deed blue Chinese style top with silver cherry blossom print across it. She sat down on the step of the genkan and laced up the black calf-high sneakers she had worn with her skirt yesterday.

"It's just a bar down the road," Hiroki assured her.

"Then why have you been fussing with your hair for five minutes," she accused as she stood up behind him in the genkan.

"Don't exaggerate."

"You should think about changing, if anything," she teased, knowing it would spark that familiar insecurity in him.

He threw his jacket down on the entryway table in frustration and stormed past her, on his way to the bedroom. He emerged a few minutes later in blue jeans and a black t-shirt instead of the previous mismatched academic attire he had been in. It had been comfortable, but was nothing special to look at. His new clothes were well made and highlighted all his _admirable_ aspects. Hiroki didn't like to be looked at, but he also didn't want his boyfriend to think he was old and boring, and with his 30th birthday soon approaching, it was a sensitive subject for him.

When they had arrived at the ambiently lit bar, Nowaki was nowhere to be seen. They secured a booth in the corner furthest from the door and the loud speakers blaring Japanese Rock over the humming chatter. Hiroki sat facing the door so he would immediately see Nowaki as he entered, not that Nowaki didn't already stand out. Hiroki fiddled with his hair some more and straightened his clothes.

"You really love him, don't you," she stated.

"Well… yeah," Hiroki softly said.

"Don't worry, you look cute," she tried to assure him.

"I'm not cute!"

"Let's agree to disagree on that," she said as she flagged a waitress down.

The waitress started blushing and smiling broadly upon seeing Hiroki. It almost made Hiroshi laugh. She had forgotten the effect Hiroki had on unsuspecting girls.

"Um, can I get you and your little sister anything?" The waitress beamed and tentatively put her flirtatious feelers out.

"Does it look like we're related?" Hiroshi snapped.

"Hun, don't get so worked up, it's probably because we look so good together, like we're meant for each other," Hiroki said, his deep voice low, soothing and full of suggestion. She had forgotten about this game they used to play and was even more surprised that Hiroki had started it so naturally.

"My girlfriend will have a strawberry daiquiri and I will have a coke," Hiroki continued.

"Oh, I…I can't serve drinks to minors," the waitress defensively said.

"If one more person calls me a minor, I'm going to scream," she complained as she retrieved her driver's licence with practiced ease.

The waitress looked at it carefully, then her eyes went wide and she quickly handed the card back and bowed in apology. "I am so sorry, Usami-sama, I did not mean any offense."

Hiroshi hated that as well –she could never run far enough from the Usami name. It always felt like a weighted shadow that dragged her down into the depths of despair. The again, she wasn't really committed to running from it either. Her indecision with everything was the real problem.

"I don't really want a drink," Hiroshi revealed, sickened by the mere suggestion of drinking.

"It wasn't for you," Hiroki informed her. Hiroki loved the cocktail but rarely had an excuse to order it. He couldn't rightly admit that he wanted the pink girly drink to the waitress, now could he, and here his girlfriend was, providing the perfect cover, as always.

"Thank you," Hiroshi said to the low bow of the waitress after she had placed their drinks in front of them.

"Ah, Nowaki," Hiroki noted, and almost jumped up, but realising what he was doing, he quickly sunk back into his seat and aloofly waved in his boyfriend's direction.

"Sorry I'm late," Nowaki said as he bounded up to the table. "I had to shower and change, it was a long day," he added as he sat down next to Hiroki and quickly kissed him on the cheek.

"What do you think you're doing! People are watching," Hiroki quietly shouted as he tried to move as far away from Nowaki as he could.

"It's hard for me to control myself when you look this cute, Hiro-san," Nowaki said and charmingly winked at Hiroshi.

"I don't mean to intrude Nowaki-kun, I just didn't want to leave without saying goodbye and getting a chance to apologise," she said in silk.

"You can call me Nowaki, Hiro, and there is no need to apologise."

"I really couldn't…," she said while waving her hands.

"If that's how you feel about it, Usami-san."

"Fine…Noo...Nowaki," she awkwardly gave in. This was how trouble started, she thought, as she noticed Hiroki's jealous glare in her direction.

"We are sharing a boyfriend after all," Nowaki said while running his fingers through Hiroki's hair. Hiroki batted his hand away when it lingered.

"I wanted to speak to you guys about that," Hiroshi revealed.

"Me too," Hiroki rumbled, still looking a little put out.

"Um, I'll keep your cover, but you don't owe me anything for it, Hiroki."

"Nonsense, Hiro-san gave his word," Nowaki piped in.

"I am a man of my word," Hiroki agreed and then looked down at the pink drink in front of him. "But I've decided to come clean with my parents," he almost whispered the words while playing with one of the cherry stems he had discarded. Hiroki had wrestled with the idea when he couldn't sleep the night before, and it had solidified in his mind throughout the day as he treasured her company.

"Don't be an idiot, Hiroki," she irritably said. "I don't need you to save me, or whatever bullshit idea you've run away with."

"Look here, it's _my_ choice!"

"No it's not, you selfish asshole." Was Hiroki really that self-centred? She hated only-children, just like her boyfriend – everything was always about them!

"Whatever I chose to tell my parents, is my decision, I don't see how it has anything to do with you." Why couldn't she just let him be the gallant knight for once?

"If you want to tell them for yourself, then fine, I can't stop you, but don't think it's going to be helping me at all," she informed him, and then snapped for the waitress after finding her coke unsatisfying at that moment.

"You'd be free, Hiro. I can't take you hurting like this anymore," Hiroki said more tenderly. Her word was precious – it was often hard to attain, but once she had promised something, she went out of her way to keep it. It was an obvious consequence of her parent's utter lack of integrity in this matter. She had given him her word, and Hiroki was sure that that was all that was keeping her bound to this agreement.

"And what would my freedom be worth if it came at the cost of the people I care about? Did you vainly think you were the only reason I agreed to it?"

"Why else, then?" He knew that she had had a little school-girl crush on him as a teenager, and that is why he had been confident enough to lie about the relationship to their parents, but she had rarely spoken to him since that awful afternoon. It had been too long ago for her to feel any romantic affection for him now, even when she had kissed him yesterday, it hadn't been the same...no tease, no moan, no longing. He had felt like her favourite toy that she had pulled down off of the dusty shelf and kissed out of nostalgia, hoping it would evoke those same childhood feelings.

"I hate when you impulsively get these crazy ideas and then dumbly run with them before thinking things through," she heatedly said. Nowaki knew exactly what she was talking about – Hiroki was stubborn and impulsive, and this had caused countless problems and misunderstandings in their relationship.

"What do you think it would do to your mother if she finds out we have lied to her for a decade?"

"I know it's not going to be easy." His mother was his problem to deal with, and his father too – God only knows what his father is going to say about it!

"I care about her; do you think I want to hurt her? She is the closest thing to a mother I've ever had. It wasn't just for you, Hiroki," she explained and placed her head in her hands. Hiroki's family was the only family she had ever had, and she couldn't bear hurting them, even if their connection was nothing but a lie. This was not even considering the fall out it would cause in her own family.

She sat up straight and looked into burnt sienna with the hardened amethyst of her own eyes. "Look, Hiroki, it's your life in the end, so do as you please."

"Don't start that fucking shit with me," he scolded. What a predictable fucking reflex she had – whenever things get tough, just fucking opt out! Her parents must be real pieces of work for teaching their children to cope in this way.

"Hiro-san, calm down," Nowaki mildly said as he leaned into the conversation, like he could physically absorb the damage they were doing to each other.

"It was nice to see you again, Nowaki. Call me sometime and maybe we can have coffee or something," she politely said and scooted down the padded seat of the bench.

"Yeah, run away, that's what you're good at," Hiroki acerbically flung.

She stood up and turned towards the direction of the door but then quickly sat down and lay flatly on the seat of the booth. She lifted her legs onto the seat and caterpillared herself back, closer to the wall and the shadows.

"What the hell are you doing? You really don't have to look that penitent," Hiroki disparagingly added.

"Is he looking over here?" she whispered, like he could hear her from the doorway.

"Who?" Hiroki blankly asked while scanning the room. The only person Hiroki had ever seen her hide from like this was her father, when they had by chance encountered him having dinner with one of his mistresses.

Hiroki's eyes stopped scanning and he turned to look at Nowaki, accusation evident in his expression.

"Well?" she asked, still hiding below table height.

"No," Hiroki clearly answered, still staring Nowaki down.

"I wonder what he's doing here?" she said, finally sitting up in the seat. "This is such bad luck, I really must be cursed."

"This bar is close to the Hospital, so a lot of the doctors come here after work," Nowaki explained and took a sip of the mojito the waitress had just brought him.

"Ishida senpai doesn't usually come here," Nowaki defended even further, but Hiroki didn't look like he believed him one bit.

When Nowaki had arrived at work and the shifts had been divided between all the residents, he had volunteered to be on Ishida senpai's service – he needed to clock some hours outside paediatrics anyway, he had justified. Everyone hated being on Ishida senpai's service, so no one had fought him for it. Ishida senpai had a reputation for being meticulous, severe, and punishing incompetence. He had made a resident cry just last week. Nowaki had had a tough, demanding day with the attending and he didn't just learn about medicine on their rounds.

One of the trauma surgeons, Kurosaki senpai, had joked with the stoic attending about 'losing another one' and then threatened him with exposing some embarrassing picture he had of the doctor when they were in high school together. Hence, the appearance of the otherwise reclusive and stoic doctor, in a place he usually would not be caught dead in. Kurosaki senpai, had a notoriously loud mouth, and by the time afternoon rounds had started the whole hospital knew Ishida senpai was heartbroken and single... again.

A loud roar was heard as all the attendings and some fifth year residents spotted Ishida senpai as he turned to leave. Nowaki laughed as he saw the doctor cringe and then turn in defeat. That's what good friends are for, Nowaki realised, to force you to move on or inject enough alcohol into your system that it renders you almost comatose and amnesic.

"He's really grown into himself, hasn't he," Hiroki noted. The boy had been attractive, but the man was astounding, and the way he moved, reminded him of Akihiko. Unparalleled confidence. He hated that confidence when Ishida would beat him at archery, and Hiroki always kept an extra reserve of endurance to reassert his dominance during martial arts. Akihiko never participated in anything or cared about the outcome, so Ishida was Hiroki's childhood nemesis, and he was also two years younger than him!

As much as Hiroki would like to deny it, he had missed the challenge that Ishida had presented, and was a little depressed that part of his motivation for success had moved away to Karakura Town for high school, since the boy's father had begun running the hospital there.

This motherless son had damage of his own, Hiroki remembered, as the childish fights they had gotten into sprung to his mind suddenly. Hiroshi's father and Ishida's father were two sides of the same dysfunctional parenting coin. Hiroshi's father didn't care enough about any one person to make it last and passed that along to his children, and Ishida's father loved his dead wife too much to care about the son that reminded him of her.

Just as he had yesterday, Hiroki wondered how the ex-lovers had managed to make it work for so long. Their dysfunction would surely clash, wouldn't it? Nowaki should have minded his own business, Hiroki decided, no matter how well meaning he was. Nowaki didn't know Hiroshi like he did, and Hiroki was determined to be her protector now, her prince, just like he used to be.

Nowaki brightly waved at the attending from across the room. As it was, Nowaki was hard to miss.

The attending looked around him to make sure and then nonchalantly waved at his giant of a resident in the crimson t-shirt and black jeans. He was six foot himself, so he guessed the resident wasn't that much of a giant, but there was just something about this one that made him seem larger than life. Ishida then sat down next to the strawberry blonde, Kurosaki Ichigo, who enthusiastically thrust a drink into his hand. Ishida tried to push it aside, but the guy sitting next to his resident looked really familiar for some reason.

"Make him stop doing that," Hiroshi begged pulling her legs up onto the seat again, almost in a foetal position.

"Nowaki!" Hiroki sternly reproached. "He's stopped looking now. Do you wanna make a run for it?"

Hiroshi crawled up on her knees and tentatively looked over the top of the booth. Ishida was sitting right in the path of the door, and with her lilac hair, she was kind of unmistakeable. They would probably have to wait until he went to the bathroom or something. She had let her eyes linger too long. He looked really good, black jeans and the blue sweater she had given him the other day. He looked really good it in, it really brought out the blue in his eyes, she remembered thinking when she had insisted he try it on.

Why did she feel like she wanted to cry?

It shouldn't matter to her that he was out. It shouldn't matter that he looked fine, at ease even, unconcerned. It all really shouldn't matter.

"Hiro, stop gawking at him or he'll notice you," Hiroki instructed. He had been the master of not being caught staring at Akihiko for years and he knew the ins and outs of the subtle art.

She slid back down in her seat and rested her head on her arms, lying on the table. Hiroki wasn't used to her being like this at all; she was usually so collected and indifferent. "You know, he could have the decency to look glum," she said as she stirred her new strawberry daiquiri with the straw. "We just broke up yesterday, after all."

"I'm sure he is really sad about it. He was really quiet at work today, even more so than usual. He didn't even have the motivation to shout at me when I misplaced his labs this afternoon," Nowaki reassuringly said. Nowaki had been expecting fire and brimstone but all he had gotten was a slap on the wrist from the distracted attending.

"That's nice of you to say, Nowaki," Hiroshi dismissively said.

"I'll be back, I'm just going over to say, hi," Nowaki informed them as he got up. His long legs carried him away before either of them could protest.

"We don't have much time. What is it? There's something you're not telling me," Hiroki growled as he leaned over the table.

"Don't be silly, Hiro," she said while focusing on the intensely pink drink in front of her, the condensation rolling like tears down the glass.

"If you don't spill it, I'm going to go over there and tell him where you are and that it was all a sham," Hiroki threatened.

"You wouldn't," she confidently said.

"Try me."

"You really have grown mean in your old age."

"You told him it was a sham, right?"

"Maybe."

"What did you say to him?"

"Not much. What was there to say?"

"What happened between you two?" He looked over at his boyfriend amiably chatting with his nemesis. Ishida's tasteful asymmetrical haircut framed his smooth skin and strong features – it seemed expressionless did in fact age well, though the doctor seemed a little more animated now than Hiroki remembered him being. Ishida pushed the silver bridge of his glasses up with his middle finger, just like he used to when he would coolly taunt Hiroki into fits of anger.

"Look, Hiroki, I don't know what you want me to say. He...He told me he loved me and then broke up with me. There really isn't much more to this tragic story."

A sneaking suspicion began to take hold in Hiroki's mind. This was bad. "He told you he loved you? When was this?"

She mumbled something around her straw.

"What was that?" Hiroki irritably asked, sure he had misheard her.

"Yesterday morning," she revealed, her eyes focused on folding the paper napkin in her hand.

"You mean before you intentionally took him home to sabotage it all?" Hiroki angrily growled.

"How could I have planned for your mother," she defended.

"If it wasn't her, it would have been something else, right? Don't play dumb with me, I know you. You're too fucking intelligent to be stuck in this same loop. You know what you're doing, so fucking stop." He felt like shaking her like the doll she looked like. And he thought _he_ was fucked up!

"Hiroki, it's not that easy. Just because I know what to do, doesn't mean that I have the strength or the courage to do it," she heatedly replied. He was the last person who should be lecturing her on self-sabotage, she angrily thought.

"When have you ever backed down from anything?" he asked, allowing the kindness to creep back into his voice. He had been going about this the wrong way, he realised.

"Perhaps this is my Achilles heel then."

"Don't you think I was scared too? I met Nowaki on the day Akihiko broke my heart and only a short week later, did he profess his love to me. I thought he was crazy and foolish and I tried to push him away too, but I found myself drawn to him, stalking him in the shadows because, for some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about him. You know I loved your brother for a long time, but my feelings somehow never got through to him."

"Yeah, about that...," she paused, trying to decide if she should confront Hiroki about that white lie. "Do you really think Akihiko didn't know about how you felt about him?"

"Of course he didn't. I know we fooled around with eachother, but he was forever in love with that Takahiro imbecile."

"That's not what I asked, Hiroki. Do you really think an author who makes his living exploring human relationships really could not tell that his best friend was in love with him for years?"

The phrasing caught him off guard. Was she trying to tell him that Akihiko knew... all along? But then, why would he agree to Hiroki's proposal that day, and why would he call out Takahiro's name? "He wouldn't have hurt me like that, if he'd known."

"Do you really believe that, Hiro?" Her voice was even, but she wasn't looking at him anymore, like she couldn't bear it.

"Stop talking shit," Hiroki shouted, as much as he would allow himself to shout in public.

"Did you know I punched Akihiko when I finally returned home? Do you want to know what he said to me as he bandaged my sprained hand?" she paused and looked deeply into his eyes.

"He needed to be rid of me, Hiroshi, it was the only way. I love him so much, but it's still not enough. He deserves more than I can ever give, you understand that, don't you?" she softly said in polished silk again, trying to hold the emotion out of her voice.

Akihiko's words hung in the silence between them.

"Do you want anything from the bar, Hiro-san?" Nowaki cheerfully asked as he leaned between them over the rectangular table of the booth. "How about you, Hiro?"

"Um, I'm fine, thanks Nowaki," she said and smiled up at him.

"Tequila," Hiroki commanded and drained Nowaki's abandoned mojito.

"Are you sure, Hiro-san?" Nowaki asked, looking a little concerned at Hiro-san's new behaviour. Hiroki's glare was enough of an answer. Nowaki could feel the palpable tension between them and decided not to intrude. He bounded off, and was soon roped into chatting to some of the other residents who suddenly recognised the paediatrician.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" Hiroki demanded.

"Even though I didn't agree with what he had done, it was already done, and to a certain extent, he had a point," she revealed.

_Hiro..._

Hiroki's hopes had soared as Akihiko had tenderly whispered his name, only to have them cruelly dashed with the correction...

_Takahiro..._

"Did you think he was crying for that Takahashi idiot? He knew what he was doing to you in that moment, he knew how much it would hurt, that he might destroy you, but he misguidedly did it to try and save you, to irreparably sabotage the romantic feelings you had for him so you could move on to something with a future. He confessed that he was tired of watching you hurt yourself to get his attention – he said he wasn't worthy of your love, and for once, I agreed with him."

"He should have just told me how he felt. I could have handled it," he said, looking down at the A4 menu in front of him like it was an encrypted Japanese scroll.

"Perhaps, but you would have tried to convince him that he was worthy of you, and he knew different. He never told you this, but he always thought he was going to end up with you, until he fell in love with Takahiro that is, and then he decided that you deserved better than a part of his heart, that's why he became distant in high school." As misguided as her brother was, she had to admit that, in his own twisted way, Akihiko loved Hiroki.

Hiroki was Akihiko's prince, even if he didn't often feel like it or get credit for his heroic acts. Akihiko had tried to shield Hiroshi from as much of their parents' dysfunction as he could. At six years old, all Hiroshi had was Akihiko, and she had hated the boy who stole her protector away, that is, until she collided with Hiroki's crying face that day. Hiroki's grounding presence in their life had saved them in a way neither sibling would ever be able to fully thank him for. Hiroki deserved better than the incomplete love of an Usami, and they had both come to realise that.

"Fuck, I feel like beating Akihiko right now," Hiroki sighed, leaned on the table and placed his face in his hands. "He knew all that fucking time."

"Forget about it, you're happy now, aren't you? I only told you because you've finally fallen in love with someone and I'm pretty sure nothing anyone says is going to change that," she reminded him as Nowaki returned with a round of drinks and the tequila.

"I got you a tropical sunrise, Hiro," Nowaki said as he handed the drink over to her. "It's mostly juice anyway. I tried to tell Kurosaki-san that you didn't want anything, but he insisted."

She had only met Ishida's best friend once, but she should have noticed the loud mouthed strawberry in the bar when they arrived. She had unfortunately been too preoccupied at the time and now she was found out. "Did he say anything to Ishida?"

"No, he said he appreciated you keeping a low key and that Ishida senpai would be better off not knowing you were here. He just wanted to say hi, but he of course can't come over," Nowaki explained as he took his seat next to Hiroki.

Hiroki downed both his and Nowaki's tequila shots. "Hiro-san, slow down or I might have to carry you home soon," Nowaki warned, a little turned on at the thought of hoisting Hiro-san over his shoulder and walking off.

"Shut up, Nowaki," Hiroki said and pulled him down for a deep, penetrating kiss. "I love you, you know that right?" Hiroki asked with Nowaki mere inches away and the front of Nowaki's t-shirt still balled up in his fist.

"Of course, Hiro-san, but it's always nice to hear," Nowaki warmly said as he opened up the menu to hide behind and leaned in for another kiss.

From the sounds that could be heard over the rock music playing, Hiroshi could only imagine the show the menu was receiving. It was considerate of Nowaki to spare her the display, but she was becoming increasingly curious as Nowaki backed Hiroki into the corner of the seat.

"Nowaki-san, it's my turn to buy, what would you guys...like?" Ishida began saying but stopped when he saw Hiroshi. His mouth hung open for a second longer before he closed it and politely smiled at her.

Nowaki put the menu down, realising only in hindsight that he should have been watching his senpai's movements more vigilantly, but who could blame him for succumbing to the enticing distraction Hiro-san was. Hiroki looked a little flustered, his kiss swollen lips still recovering, rendering him speechless. Hiroki faced back forward and straightened the front of his shirt that Nowaki's sly hand had managed to get under.

No one said anything for an awkward few seconds.

"Ah, Kamijou-san, it is nice to see you again. It's been a few years, hasn't it?" Ishida politely said, everything having snapped into place for him suddenly.

"What a coincidence that we should run into each other here of all places," Hiroki said, his deep voice quivering ever so slightly. "How...how have you been?"

"Busy."

"Yes, Nowaki tells me. He says you're a good teacher." How was he ever going live this down, and in front of his nemesis of all people. How the man managed to remain calm after encountering this scene and his ex-girlfriend at the same table, Hiroki would never know. He had heard of being cold before, but the atmosphere in this conversation was frigid.

"On the contrary, Nowaki-san is simply a good student, but then, you would know that, wouldn't you?" If all the hospital's rumours were true, Nowaki had gotten into a relationship with his tutor, Hiro-san, and although Ishida would never call his rival 'cute' he could guess at why his resident would feel that way about Hiroki.

"Let me introduce..." Nowaki began but was cut off.

"Kamijou-san's girlfriend, I know, I am afraid we have already met. I hope you are well, Usami-san. If you would excuse me," Ishida said as he politely bowed and left the table.

Hiroshi peaked around the edge of the booth, watching her ex-boyfriend walk away. She had been too busy running yesterday to notice what she had done to him. "I've really fucked things up, haven't I?"

"What did you say when he told you he loved you?" Hiroki wondered.

"Ishida senpai said he loved you? That's wonderful!" Nowaki exclaimed.

"I didn't really say anything... and then he said I didn't have to say it back, that he just wanted me to know how he felt, and then we continued our picnic like nothing had happened," she revealed. She must really care about this guy to have endured a picnic, outside, Hiroki realised. "Then we started making out and I invited him home, and well, you know the rest."

"That was cold, even for you, Hiro," Hiroki reproached.

"He just directly came out and said it! What was I supposed to say? It was a little unfair of him to spring it on me like that, don't you think?"

"He's in love with you!" Nowaki sternly said, he didn't often raise his voice, but he had had enough. "He couldn't keep it inside any longer, so he told you. He wanted you to know how special you are to him, and he was willing to wait for you to feel it too. It must have hurt him when you didn't say it back, but he pushed his pain aside and put himself in your shoes. You'd like to play the martyr who's in love with Hiro-san, but not even that's true – you're just scared!"

"Nowaki!" Hiroki growled in disapproval.

Hiroshi's eyes had filled with tears as he spoke. Nowaki was right; he had stripped away all the old truths and revealed her present lies. She did love Hiroki, but not like she used to, Akihiko had seen to that on that fateful day – he had released more than Hiroki from an unrequited hold. Akihiko had known she was coming home on that day and had chosen her bedroom on purpose. As much as she wanted it to be true, as much as she wanted to blame her feelings for Hiroki for all her relationship failures, she knew it was all her self-sabotage – her fear shone through brightly now, blinding her from the intensity truths wasting away at her feet. She had known it all along, but no one had ever called her on it, until now.

"Do you love him?" Nowaki softly asked as he leaned over and gently brushed aside a rolling tear before it reached her lips.

"How can I answer that, when I don't know how I feel? I feel like I'm being torn apart inside ever since he said it. Shouldn't love be like the fairy tales in books, all rainbows and rocket ships?"

"For other people, maybe, but for damaged souls like us, it's an equal measure of fear and longing, but once you break through that barrier, it's mostly fireworks and rocket ships," Hiroki said, blushing profusely and glancing sideways at Nowaki's wide smile. "You just have to take the leap and hope someone will catch you," Hiroki explained. Hiroki felt stupid giving someone relationship advice and he usually would have minded his own business, but he had a unique insight that he knew would resonate within her, and his little princess was worth the momentary discomfort.

Hiroki was extremely well read, but he had still encountered very little work that intimately resonated with him. Akihiko's work was the closest he'd come to seeing characters he had a kinship with, but even Akihiko couldn't fully express the dysfunction that sometimes accompanies loving someone. Akihiko hadn't ever had the courage to love somebody who was his equal, so he could never fully understand the danger of letting someone in who had the ammunition to destroy you. Even at the best of times, Hiroki's lover had the ability to cripple him, render him insane, and force him to contemplate murder... usually in that order.

"Do you want Ishida senpai to catch you, Hiro?" Nowaki mildly asked.

"I think he might have already," she sighed, "but I guess I just didn't notice." Perhaps he had caught her in more ways than one on that first day. She had been ensnared. "It was more like entrapment, though," she resistently added.

She peered over her shoulder at her ex-boyfriend, standing at the bar, with some girl shamelessly flirting with him. It made her blood boil, but she knew she had no right to be upset about it. "I've really fucked it up, haven't I?"

"You know," Hiroki began, "you don't have to be so calm and level headed about it. I'm sure he wouldn't mind some irrationality from you once in a while," he suggested as he watched the girl move Ishida's dark hair out of his face and flirtatiously giggle. Hiroshi had always been logical to a fault, too controlled, Hiroki thought. Hiroki had once upon a time coveted that trait in her and Akihiko, but loving Nowaki had shown him that power lay in indifference, but happiness in surrender.

"We've broken up, he can do as he pleases."

"Of course that's what you would rationally say, but how do you feel right now?" Hiroki prodded.

"Like I want to break her hand for touching him," Hiroshi admitted.

"See," Hiroki stated, "that's love."

"Hiro-san is right," Nowaki agreed, no stranger to jealousy or violence himself.

"You're not suggesting I assault her, are you?" Hiroshi weakly objected, the girl's close proximity to her boyfriend increasing by the second, as was Hiroshi inclination to run over there and wedge herself between them.

"Why don't you start by going over there, and letting nature take its course," Nowaki suggested. "Though Hiro-san has not been against violence when necessary," Nowaki added, remembering the kick on the head he had endured when he returned from America. Hiroki began to blush, ducked his head down and quickly averted his eyes to the drink in front of him.

She hesitantly stood up. "Oh fuck! I can't," she said and turned back around.

"Just fuck off over there," Hiroki scolded. If you loved someone, you sometimes had to suck it up and swallow your pride, Hiroki had regretfully realised over the years.

She walked slowly over to the bar and sat on the barstool slightly to the side of him, on the opposite side of where he was occupied with the girl. Once he noticed her presence, he turned his back on her completely. Her heart deflated just a little bit at this, but what had she expected after all she'd done. She didn't know what to do and all she felt like doing was running away.

The bartender took her drink order.

His hand was so close, she realised. What would he do if she just took it? Would he pull away? Would he shout? Would he recoil in disgust?

She turned her back to him as the bartender handed her the drink. Whatever his reaction was, she knew she would not be able to face him.

She grabbed his hand, behind both their backs, lacing her cool fingers between his under the cover of the bar top. She felt him freeze and stop mid-sentence with the girl he was flirting with, his limp heated fingers remained unmoving between hers. When he didn't immediately pull away, she gently squeezed his hand but he didn't respond. This was heart wrenching, she thought. He picked up his conversation again and she knew it was over.

She drained her drink at the bar. She didn't care about the hang over anymore, not after this humiliation. She was trying to stealthily unlace their fingers so she could quietly slink away. Just before she could get off the stool, he turned around and cornered her, slamming his hands on the bar top on either side of her.

"Is that it?" he challenged.

The girl he had been flirting with looked confused about what was suddenly going on. Out of instinct, Hiroki had stood up on the other side of the room but Nowaki had held him back.

"Is that all I am worth to you?" Ishida asked as he leaned over her. His pheromones lingering all around him like his own intoxicating cocktail.

"Is there anything I could say that would satisfy you?" she earnestly asked as she leaned away, afraid of becoming inebriated on him. _God, why did he have to smell so good_? It often made her want to ravish him on first contact.

The statuesque brunette he had been flirting with gave up at this and huffily walked off, mumbling something under her breath.

"Why don't you try and I'll let you know when I'm satisfied," he coldly said, leaning in even closer, completely aware of her weakness and his effect.

"I... I want you," she whispered as she leaned in as well. He made her feel so weak – she was usually so strong, in control, indifferent. She hated this, but she felt like a heroin addict jonesing for their next fix, trembling at the thought and fixated by the temptation.

"Not good enough," he said, leaning down a little more.

"I need you," she breathed as she lifted up slightly and removed his glasses like she always loved to before she moved in for the kill. She ran her arms over his shoulders and around his neck.

"Almost there," he teased as his voice rasped the words.

"I..."

"The bar is for drink orders, you two," the bartender interrupted.

Ishida grabbed her by the wrist, walked across the floor, and pulled her into a dimly lit, secluded corner of the bar. He shoved her lightly against the wall as he stalked closer and leaned his forearms on either side of her head. A fair number of his friends were watching by now, but he didn't seem bothered by it.

"Now where were we?" he asked as he leaned his body into hers, grabbing her around the waist with his left arm.

"I... I can't say it," she gasped the words as his teeth gently caught her earlobe.

"Are you sure," he asked as he sucked her earlobe and then moved his lips lower, his breath causing her to shiver in his arms.

"I've never said it to anyone...before," she revealed, the pitch of her voice climbing an octave.

"Then let me be the first," he said as he kissed her jaw, "and the last," he added, finally looking into her eyes, like he was done playing games.

"I..."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

Well, I'm probably going to leave it there. I was planning to artfully tease all this out and more over 5 to 10 chapters, but alas. I'm sorry if the chapter seems rushed again. The extent of my artistry is of course questionable, but I was going to at least attempt to entertain you. Before anyone gets outraged – Ishida's speciality is archery in Bleach, so that is the only reason I suggested he might be better than Hiroki in that one thing.

The concept of yaoi has been more thoroughly explained to me, and I see that one of my biggest mistakes was inserting a female OC into a yaoi setting. I thought the concept of my story was unique, and that yet another guy in JR would be boring and couldn't cause nearly as much trouble in the solid egoist relationship. I now more fully understand what a yaoi reader gets out of reading yaoi and why a female OC would be cognitively intrusive, not that I agree with the narrow minded implication of that. If I had to place any label on myself, I would say I am pansexual. I understand that my genderless approach to this story has played a part in its downfall, but all I was interested in exploring was the characters of the individuals, regardless of gender, not that I was ignoring it, but there are so many more interesting things to focus on than the simplicity of what is between our legs.

Due to the rigidity of the yaoi construct enforced in this fandom, it has stolen away some of the enthusiasm I had originally had when I encountered the anime and manga and then contemplated creating a story. Other _het_ fandoms tolerate yaoi and flexibility with regard to canon characters, so I find it highly regretful that most female OCs are considered mary-sue in yaoi. If anyone was wondering, this OC and I are nothing alike in personality or appearance, but I suppose you will have to take my word for that.

I read this wonderful satirical piece on yaoi yesterday – I laughed so much I cried. Please only check this out if you have a sense of humour, else you might be severely offended. It made me think a lot about Akihiko/Misaki (just on the surface) and how Egoist is a slight departure from the conventional yaoi formula. (http:/ daioh-sakura. deviantart. com /art/ HOW-TO-WRITE-YAOI-109193542) [Remove all the unnecessary spaces or just google 'Daioh Sakura and yaoi']. The piece that gets second place for being Rofl is (http:/ . com /art / How-To-Write-Yaoi-150819406) [In the Machine – yaoi, Deviant Art, same procedure as last time]

**Response to Reviews:**

**Damon's-hot-as hell:** Forgive me for misspelling your name in the last chapter. When I looked at your profile and saw that you wrote for Vampire Diaries I realised that it was of course, Damon...and yes, he is hot as hell! Thank you for your interest in this story and your reviews. I hope you enjoyed my short tale.

**Deepest Night:** Thank you for attempting to be my meat-shield and for all the exaggerated praise you bestowed upon me. Like I screamed (well, firmly said, since you know I don't scream) into your voicemail the other day, after you attempted to blackmail me – it becomes tricky when people know what I do and I don't care if they believe me or not anymore. If you consider my truthful answer to that question, you'd realise how unlikely it would sound to most and that it would simply open up a new can of worms.

**Erin:** I apologise for you incurring any negativity due to favourably reviewing my work. I know you have only started reading my work this year, but you are also a loyal reviewer where many would simply consume and show no appreciation to the creator. I love always knowing when you've read my work because you always give me considerate feedback. Like I said to you the other day, that reviewer didn't have a problem with you, they had a problem with me and my work, and I am sorry they attempted to make you collateral damage in the war they were waging with me.

**The Lurking Anonymous:** You must be seriously aggrieved to find me and my 'special snowflake' back. If you consider my work such an atrocity, a blight on the fandom even, then please stop masochistically torturing yourself with my congested prose and self-insertion. I appreciate the dedication you showed by logging into your empty account to ensure your voice was heard, but might I suggest that you more positively redirect that energy and actually produce some work. If you are in fact this 'Isabella' person as well, perhaps you should look into applying your "craft" as you called it. I also humbly request that you refrain from contemplating any of my delectable body parts and what I might be doing with them now, or with whom.

**Don't Preach:** Thank you for reviewing both my previous chapters and applying some of that healing balm of yours. You have been a fantastic correspondent, but I fear my intrusiveness has scared you away. Thank you for all the help you have given me, all the wonderful challenges and insights you have offered, and especially for your flexibility in sticking with something outside of your comfort zone. I suppose it depends on preference, just like the circumcised or not circumcised debate, but as in gay culture, I personally don't appreciate any unnecessary hair on men or women. We should start a hairless aesthetic petition and hope people get the message. I love substantial reviews that challenge me and add to my creative process, even if the result of this process is ultimately uninspiring for most readers. I am glad that you for one, saw the purpose and effectiveness of my female OC in bringing out all the egoist elements. Above all, thank you for being my "comforter". You are a master of JR and I humbly bow at your feet.

I'd like to say, "Thank You," to everyone who has read the story, alerted and favourited. Feedback would be appreciated. I'm probably going to be crucified for producing this chapter, but since it's Lent, I feel somewhat prepared.

~Willow~


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